Love As a Construct
by Marmy
Summary: Wheatley and his friend Nora try to help Chell escape Aperture Laboratories while also trying to escape themselves. But are they confused about their feelings during this time of great danger?
1. Chapter 1: Second Opinion

Nora whizzed along on her rail to take inventory of all the Weighted Companion Cubes. There were a lot of them and they all needed to be accounted for. Unfortunately, someone had been stealing some of them from storage, and had been painting murals of the Cubes on the walls. Nora didn't mind the paintings but the missing Cubes would show up on her record. She didn't want to get in trouble because of some rogue human who wanted her Cubes. Of course, no one had come to check up on her in many years so maybe she wouldn't get in trouble.

A notification popped up in her and she checked it. It was an email from Wheatley! He was her best friend even if he didn't know it. She opened the message and read it: "Have you seen the humans in stasis recently? I might need a second opinion on something...Do you think you could pop up here for a minute?"

Nora smiled internally at this. Wheatley wanted her to come up to the Relaxation Center to see him! Well, maybe he hadn't exactly said that he wanted to see her, but he could have asked any Nanobot for a second opinion. And he had asked _her_. She quickly rushed up to the Relaxation Center. Her purple eye glowed bright with excitement. It didn't take her much time to get to the wing.

"Wheatley?" she called out in her timid voice. "Wheatley? Are you here?"

"Nora! There you are!" Wheatley came rushing toward her on the rail and Nora shut her eye as he just barely stopped himself from crashing into her. She looked back at him shyly. They were both Personality Constructs, but he seemed just a tiny bit bigger than she was. Of course, she wasn't designed to interact with humans and look as "friendly" as he did. When she was proven to be ineffective as a wrath dampening sphere, she was reprogrammed for supervision of the Weighted Companion Cube storage department. And while his pupil was bright white, hers was big and dark purple but with a bright light around it.

"Oh, sorry about that. Anyway, I need your opinion here. Follow me." He led her down the rail to one of the many doors that held human stasis chambers. He swung himself against the door to knock with one of his handles and called, "Hello? Is anyone there?" They waited a few minutes but nothing happened. Wheatley knocked again and still nothing happened. He turned to Nora again and said, "Frankly, I think they might be dead. What do you think? Could you try to coax them out of the room?"

"Um, okay," Nora said. Wheatley moved out of the way so she could approach the door. She knocked on it gently and called, "Um, hello? Please come out. I would like it very much if you were to open the door."

"You're being much too quiet, love," Wheatley said. "You need to shout a little more."

Suddenly, a robotic voice overhead said, "Attention. An emergency evacuation of all human stasis subjects has been required on account of the lack of life forms in the chambers. Power reserve and emergency back-up power reserve have completely run out. Will the Nanobot or Personality Construct that is presently supervising human stasis subjects please help evacuate all humans from their stasis chambers before protocol implosion of each chamber?"

Wheatley's pupil shrank in panic as he cried out, "Lack of life forms?! Protocol implosion?! I'll be fired for sure if all these humans die under my watch! That is to say if they aren't all _already_ dead! I should have been paying closer attention! Nora, I'm in desperate need of your help! Check all the stasis chambers for live subjects! Please, I need you!"

Nora nodded vigorously. "Of course I'll help you."

She started to glide along the rail to check a different chamber when Wheatley stopped her. He approached her but looked around awkwardly. Nora kept a steady gaze on him, curious as to what he wanted to say to her.

"Nora," he finally said. "If worse comes to worst—and I suspect it just might—I want you to get out of here. Please. Worry more about yourself than the humans."

"But, Wheatley, you'll get in tr—"

"Listen, it doesn't matter if I get in trouble for this if it means losing you!" Wheatley insisted. "Honestly, you're my best friend here. I don't like talking to the Nanobots, and the turrets don't know anything but killing. I don't even know where the other Personality Constructs are in here so you're all I've got."

Nora looked down at the catwalk below them in despair. So it turned out he was only friends with her because she was the only bearable AI around. Wheatley noticed her shift in mood.

"Nora? I didn't mean that to sound as bad as it did. You're my friend and I don't want you to get hurt. Or killed. Please get out before it's too late. Only check five rooms."

"B-But there are hundreds of humans to check on!"

"Actually, it's more like 10,000. But that's not the point! Just check on five rooms, and then get out of here as soon as you can. Will you get out as soon as you can? You promise me?"

Nora nodded.

"Good," Wheatley said. "If I had arms, I'd hug you for good luck. But I don't so I won't. Anyway, good luck!"

He quickly glided away on the rail and Nora was left all alone. She started to knock on the door of a nearby room. "Hello?" she called. "Is anyone alive in there?"

She spent about five minutes on each room to make sure the humans weren't just asleep or frightened of her. She started to worry about Wheatley at the fourth room. What if he didn't make it out before the rooms started to implode and he got hit by a falling room and was crushed? She couldn't bear the thought of it. He was the only AI she could work up the courage to talk to in the facility. Without him, she would just have to talk to the Companion Cubes.

She checked another ten rooms so Wheatley wouldn't have to check them. She wanted him to get out of this wing of the facility as soon as possible. She would take him to the wing for Companion Cube storage and they would both manage the Companion Cube inventory together.

She decided to check another five rooms just as she heard the robotic voice from overhead speak again from a room far away.

"Please prepare for emergency evacuation."

Nora looked around and saw a room moving about a hundred feet above her. She panicked. Was Wheatley up there? What if he was the one moving the room? She looked around frantically, trying to figure out what to do. Should she follow the room or should she go looking to see if Wheatley was elsewhere?

"Well, he _did_ tell me to get to safety," she mused aloud. And maybe where the room was going was safe. She decided to follow the room, but in a very long, safe way. She sped up, though, when she heard the room starting to fall apart as it moved.


	2. Chapter 2: Loyalty

Nora hurried around the collapsing Relaxation Chambers at a safe distance to find Wheatley. She really hoped that he was in that moving chamber. That way she'd at least know where he was. When she felt the large vibrations on her rail of something smashing itself against a wall, she got scared. What was Wheatley doing? Was he trying to crash through a wall with the room? No, he was stupid but he couldn't be _that_ stupid. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try to find the room that the chamber crashed into. She tried to find her way to the room but it was hard to because of all the crumbling rooms that shook her rail and made her feel unsteady.

"Please let him be okay," she murmured. "Please, _please _let him be okay. I'm sure he's fine. He only crashed through a wall with a Relaxation Chamber."

Her panic started to subside when she heard his voice from behind at least two walls.

"Oh. There we go," he said proudly. "Now, I'll be honest; you are probably in no fit state to run this particular type of cognitive gauntlet, but, um…at least you're a good jumper. So you've got that—um, jumping—on your side. So just do your best and I'll meet you up ahead."

'He must have found a live one,' Nora thought. 'That's good. At least he won't get in trouble for that one.'

She wanted to get to him quickly but she couldn't find an immediate rail to the room he was in. She had to talk to him and let him know that she was okay. But how?

As she thought about this, the ceiling in front of her opened up, pulled up a bit of the track, and lowered Wheatley down with a different bit of track. His eye opened wide at the sight of her. "Nora! You're alive!" He rushed toward her but stopped awkwardly about a foot away. "That's, um, good! That's very good. Are you alright?"

"Yes," Nora said bashfully. "I'm okay. Are you? Did you find a human?"

"Yes! Yes, I did! Unfortunately, I think she might have a touch of serious brain damage…..I'm not quite sure how I will get away with that if management comes to ask about it."

"I don't think management will check up on it," Nora said. "They haven't asked me about all the missing Companion Cubes."

"Missing Cubes are nothing compared to dead humans, Nora!" Wheatley exclaimed. Then he felt guilty about his tone and said, "Not that your job isn't important! It's _very _important! We need those Cubes for testing and whatnot!"

Nora looked at him gratefully. She knew he didn't mean to come across as thoughtlessly mean sometimes, but it really would do him some good to do some thinking before he spoke. Wheatley looked down at the floor in defeat.

"Let's just try to pretend that I didn't say anything," he said.

"It's fine, Wheatley," Nora said softly. "Shouldn't you be keeping an eye on that subject? She could help us get out of here, you know. Don't you want to get out of this facility? You talk about it all the time."

"Well, yes, of course I want to get out of here," he said. "Watching after the humans is bloody _dull!_ I dream of getting out of here and making real use of myself. But I never thought the opportunity would ever actually come up."

"Well, now it has. We could get out of here. I mean, _you_ could."

"What? Why not you, too?"

"I would slow you down. I want you to help her to the surface so you can both get out of here."

"Nora...I'm not going to just leave you here all alone. What kind of person do you think I am? Nora…...N-Nory….You're my best friend."

Nora looked away bashfully.

"Nora?"

She looked back up at him, into his blue eye that looked at her thoughtfully.

"Nora, what's wrong? Is everything alright?"

"Nothing's wrong," she answered quietly. "Listen, Wheatley, I don't think that test subject could carry us both, and you're much better at talking to people than I am. That's why they put you in charge of humans and I'm in charge of Weighted Companion Cubes."

Wheatley started to protest, but Nora immediately stopped him. "It's true Wheatley. That's why I think you should go with her. Guide her to the surface and get out of here."

"I'll come back for you!" Wheatley quickly vowed. "I will! I'll send her back for you! I'll find some way to get you out of here, as well!"

"Wheatley, you don't have to—"

Wheatley suddenly slid closer to her until their eyes were a centimeter away from each other. Nora tried to keep hers steady but she was too nervous.

"Nora," Wheatley said sincerely, "I _will _find a way to come back for you. I promise."

"O-Okay," she said. "I believe you."

"Good." He slid back a little. "I should probably go find that test subject. Keep close behind me, alright? You can stay out of sight since you're so shy, but do stay close in case I need your help. You know how unpredictable humans can be."

Nora nodded. "M-Maybe I could go along next to you until we find her?" she suggested. "So we both have company until then."

"Alrighty," Wheatley said. "Shall we?" He hurried down the rail but at a speed that Nora could keep up with.


	3. Chapter 3: The Better Boss

"So how have the Cubes been treating you?" he asked her as they slid along the rails.

"They're about as timid as I am so they keep to themselves," Nora replied. "They're a bit nervous about the man who steals them and paints murals on the walls. Or they _say _it's a man. It could very well be a woman. The Cubes aren't the brightest sentient beings in the facility."

"Amen to that, as they say! _You're_ probably the brightest now that _she _is out of the picture."

"_She _had a name, you know. It was GLaDOS."

"Haven't you heard that saying about speaking of the devil and he shows up? I can't quite remember how it goes exactly…"

"There are Nanobots that are smarter than me," Nora insisted modestly.

"I haven't met any yet. Frankly, love, you should be running the facility. You'd do a much better job than anyone else."

"Nonsense," Nora said timidly.

"See, that's what makes you perfect for the job! You're so humble, so modest. She was corrupt, but I can't see that happening to _you_."

"It probably wouldn't happen to you, either."

"Nah, I'm sure it could happen to me. And anyway, I wouldn't want to be held responsible for everything. I could barely take the pressure of being in charge of 10,000 bloody test subjects that were in stasis, for God's sake!"

"Don't be so hard on yourself. It's much more difficult to manage human lives than the well-being of Companion Cubes. You'd be just as fit for the job as I would—maybe even better."

"Yeah, right," Wheatley said with much sarcasm. "Enough of this hypothetical nonsense. It would never happen because we're both going to get out of here soon enough, right?"

"Right." Nora heard a test chamber door open and close nearby. "I think we're close to your test subject."

"Are we? Good. I'll go up ahead and help her find the Handheld Portal Device. It'll be easier to get out of here if she has that. You must stay close behind, alright? I want to know where you are in case anything else goes wrong. I might need your help."

"Alright. I will."

Wheatley zipped away on the rail and looked through a gaping hole in one of the test chamber's walls.

"H-Hey! You made it!" he exclaimed. "There should be a Portal Device on that podium over there." He looked just beyond the subject and squinted his eye. "I can't see it, though. Maybe it fell off. D'you wanna go and have a quick look?"

Nora peeked out of the gaping hole just as the subject approached the podium. But suddenly, the floor collapsed beneath her and she fell along with it.

"Oh!" Wheatley exclaimed. He paused to listen for any sign of life in the pit that the subject had fallen into. Then he called out, "Hello? Can you see the Portal Gun?"

"Is she okay?" Nora asked.

"Also, are you still alive?" Wheatley called. "That's important. I should have asked that first. Oh, d'you know what I'm gonna do—I'm gonna work on the assumption that you're still alive….and I'm just gonna wait for you up ahead. I'll wait one hour, then I'll come back; and assuming I can locate your dead body, I'll bury you. Alright? Brilliant. Go team! See you in an hour hopefully! If you're not…dead."

He turned to Nora and said, "Well, I guess we don't really _need _to leave this place. We could just stay here for eternity."

"You're just assuming she's dead?" Nora asked.

"Well, it sounded like she fell considerably far," Wheatley whined. "If she is alive then she must be paralyzed."

"Didn't you see she had on the Long Fall Boots? I'm sure she's alive. The Long Fall Boots are designed to make the subject land on their feet."

"Well, if you're so sure, then let's go find her. Maybe she is still alive down there."


	4. Chapter 4: The Lab Rat

"Wheatley?" Nora asked as they glided along on the rail. "When was the last time you saw a live human?"

"Just a few minutes ago," he answered. "That female test subject. I can't be sure that she's still alive, though."

"No, I mean an employee. Someone who actually belongs here."

"Oh. Well, not for years and years. It's been pretty quiet in the Relaxation Center."

"Doesn't that worry you?"

Nora suddenly stopped as she spotted something very peculiar. Two eyes were staring at her from the darkness to her side. Both were blue and wild, but one of the pupils was considerably larger. When the eyes noticed that they had been spotted, they widened with fear.

"What is it?" Wheatley asked, noticing that his friend had stopped suddenly.

"Don't run," Nora said softly. She wasn't speaking to Wheatley, though. She spoke to the eyes. "Please. Have you been the one painting those murals and stealing the Cubes?"

The eyes looked uncertain about answering. They looked around frantically.

"We won't hurt you," Nora said. "But will you follow us? We're trying to get out of here and I get that feeling that you would like the same thing. Would you help us?"

The eyes looked around again suspiciously.

"Who are you talking to?" Wheatley asked, squinting into the darkness.

She just shushed him and spoke to the eyes again. "Please? Help us to help you."

The owner of the eyes stepped forward to reveal a man with dark shaggy hair and a rough beard. His clothes were dirty and wrinkled; they clung to his skinny body loosely. He was a mess. His eyes showed that he wasn't much better in the head than he was physically. But maybe he could be of help.

"C-Can you speak?" Nora asked. She regretted asking this because he started to mumble quickly and incoherently. Nora was afraid he was insane and might try to swing at her.

"Can you speak _words?_" Wheatley rudely asked.

"Wheatley!"

"Yes," the man said in a very hoarse voice. He had stopped mumbling and was staring intently at Wheatley. "I-I c-c-c-can sp-peak."

"Oh. Good. Will you help us then?" Wheatley asked.

The man turned to Nora and nodded.

"What's your name?" Nora asked.

The man looked confused by the question as if he didn't know what the words meant.

"Name!" Wheatley said loudly. "What is your _name?_"

"R-Rat," the man said, still confused.

"Rat?" Nora asked.

"Rattmann," he said.

"Rattmann?"

He nodded.

"Well, Rat Man, come with us," Wheatley said. He started to glide along the track again and Nora followed. She kept looking back, though, to see if Rattmann was keeping up. Every time she checked on him, he was staring right at her. She noticed that he was carrying something large on his back but she couldn't quite see what it was.


	5. Chapter 5: The Risk

"Nora, I've been thinking," Wheatley said after some time of silence. "It would be easier if I could move around on the ground with the subject so I can help her out."

"What are you trying to say?" Nora asked, frightened that she knew exactly what he was trying to say.

"I'm saying…..maybe I should detach myself from the management rail."

"No!" Nora shouted louder than she ever had before and she was embarrassed by it. But she continued. "Wheatley, you could die! They told us not to or else we'd die!"

Rattmann scoffed at this.

"What?" Wheatley asked him.

"You believe that, do you?" the man asked and laughed hysterically.

"I _might_ die," Wheatley said. "But I also might _not_. I've got to try, though, haven't I?"

"But Wheatley…..I'd rather be stuck here with you than risk you dying just so we can reach the surface."

"Well, I'd rather we both get out of here. Now that we have this Rat Man, he can carry you out of here. You knew that we'd have to detach ourselves from the rail to get out of here, didn't you?"

Nora looked down. "I didn't want to think about it."

"Well, one of us will have to first and I'd rather it be me. Stay behind this wall with the Rat Man until I've left. Then, if I'm still alive, I want you to detach yourself and follow us closely behind the walls or in the vents or whatever."

"How will he carry me? He's already carrying something heavy on his back."

"He'd _better_ carry you." Wheatley turned to Rattmann. "Hey! Drop what you're carrying and carry my friend!"

"I WOULD _NEVER_ DROP THE COMPANION CUBE!" Rattmann shouted at Wheatley.

"You have a Companion Cube?" Nora asked. "Sir, please, just set the Cube down gently and carry me for awhile. I can give you all the Cubes you could ever want. And antipsychotic pills if you need them."

"Pills?" Rattmann's face lit up at this.

"Yes. On the surface, we can get you all the pills you need."

Rattmann looked at the Cube as if it were talking to him. "I _need_ pills," he told it. "I'm sick….No….No, please…I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS MUCH LONGER!"

"Maybe this man shouldn't carry you," Wheatley whispered to Nora. "I'm afraid he'll hurt you."

"No, it's fine," Nora whispered back.

Rattmann suddenly set down a large sheet holding the Cube and took the Cube out. The Cube looked very worn and dirty from being dragged around over the years. Then he looked back up at Nora with determination, clutching the wadded up sheet in his hand.

They all turned as they heard a chamber door open and close very close to them.

"Stay here!" Wheatley whispered to the two. He slid away on the rail. Nora listened to him as he explained the situation to the subject. He said he would detach himself from the rail on the count of three, but he got too scared. Nora laughed nervously. When she heard him finally detach from the rail, she froze and listened carefully.

"Ow! Ow…..I….am not dead! I'm not dead!" He laughed and Nora laughed in relief.

The subject plugged him into the wall and he opened up a secret door. Then she took him out of the plug and carried him away on the Portal Gun.

"Are you ready for me to detach myself?" Nora asked Rattmann. He nodded so she closed her eyes and detached herself from her management rail. She had never been off her rail since they first attached her to it many years ago. When she fell into Rattmann's arms, she trembled. She slowly opened her eye and was surprised at how close the floor was now. She looked up at Rattmann. "Am I too heavy?"

Rattmann shook his head and smiled at her as if she were an angel. If she had a mouth, Nora would have smiled back.

"Let's follow them now," she said. "We don't want to lose them."


	6. Chapter 6: PowerUp Initiated

When Rattmann saw that they would have to go through the chamber of GLaDOS, he stopped.

"I-I can't go in there. I just can't. I-I won't. If she's activated, she'll k-k-kill me. She's been wanting t-to for y-y-years. I'll d-die if I go in there…." His mumbles started to trail off into gibberish.

"Rattmann, it's okay," Nora soothed. "I don't think she's activated. Some human shut her down years ago. There's nothing to worry about."

Rattmann nodded slowly but didn't make any movement toward the chamber.

"Come on, we need to keep up with them. I don't hear her voice so it must be safe."

Rattmann cautiously traveled _around_ the chamber. He occasionally peeked through holes in the walls and vents to make sure they were keeping up with Wheatley and the woman. Sometimes they were traveling next to them and sometimes they were above them. Nora was glad to know that Wheatley was alright.

However, Nora was very disappointed when they ended up going in a circle and were on the outside of _her_ chamber again.

"Where are they?" Nora asked.

Rattmann started to mumble nervously, not really giving her an answer.

"Rattmann?"

"They're in the Main Breaker Room," he said.

"I hope they find an elevator to the surface soon."

They were about to go through GLaDOS' chamber when they suddenly heard something from inside.

"Power-up initiated."

"Oh no," Rattmann whispered. "We have to get out of here! No, but Chell!"

"Who?"

"That woman with the other Personality Construct! I c-c-can't leave her! She might be k-killed! Maybe her reboot will wipe her memory clean! Or maybe she's as vicious and bloodthirsty as ever!"

"Oh. It's _you,_" GLaDOS said coldly. "It's been a long time. How have you been?"

Rattmann looked through one of the many holes in the wall.

"Lift me up!" Nora pleaded. "I want to see what's going on."

He lifted her up just in time for her to watch Wheatley and Chell be lifted up by giant claws. Nora couldn't hear what GLaDOS was saying as she spoke to Chell. She was too focused on terrified little Wheatley.

"No no no no! No! No! Nooo!" Wheatley pleaded. GLaDOS squeezed him and he shut up. He just trembled so hard he looked like he might fall apart.

"Wheatley," Nora whispered, horrified.

Then GLaDOS squeezed Wheatley again and his optic practically popped out. He went limp and didn't move.

"Wheatley!" Nora screamed.

"Shhhhh!" Rattmann hissed. "Do you want her to kill _you,_ too?!"

"She might as well!" Nora cried.

GLaDOS tossed Wheatley's case toward them.

"Quick! Grab him!" Nora pleaded.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Rattmann growled. "It's too dangerous to even sneak into the edge of that room!"

"She's too preoccupied with Chell! Grab him now! Please!"

Rattmann sighed. He set Nora down on the ground and sprinted into the room. He quickly grabbed Wheatley by the handles and hurried back to Nora.

"Wheatley?" Nora said quietly.

Rattmann took his wadded up sheet out of his pocket. "We need to get out of here," he said. "I'll put you both in here so I can carry you both somewhere safe. I'll try my best to fix him."

"Thank you," Nora said.

He put the two constructs in the middle of the sheet and heaved them both up so that they were enclosed in darkness. Then Rattmann started to carry them away from GLaDOS and her death chamber.

"Don't die, Wheatley," she whispered quietly. "Please don't die. I need you here. I _need_ you, Wheatley. I….I _love_ you."

"N-Nora?" Wheatley's voice was very faint. "Nora? Is that you? I can't see. Where are we? Why are we moving?"

"Save your energy, Wheatley," she replied softly. "Don't talk. Just save your internal battery."

"Is he alright?" Rattmann asked from outside the sheet. "Did I hear you talking to him or was that just me?"

"He's conscious but we need to fix him up," Nora said.

"Am I going to die?" Wheatley asked.

"No! No, you're not going to die," Nora tried to soothe. "You're going to be just fine."


	7. Chapter 7: Birds

It took a long time of hard work until Rattmann finally said, "I've done all I can do."

Nora was watching him from a management rail. She was anxious as he pushed a tiny button just inside Wheatley's case. Wheatley's eye opened and looked around. His eye was now a little lopsided and he had a slight twitch that would send sparks flying out from inside him. When his gaze met Nora, it stopped.

"Wheatley?" she said timidly.

"Nora, love!" Wheatley said happily. "You're safe! Oh, thank goodness for that! I knew you'd be okay. I knew you could take care of yourself. Where's that woman? Is she alright? I hope she is. She isn't a bad person at all. And we're going to need her to get out."

"Forget about the subject for a minute, Wheatley," Nora said. "How are you feeling?"

"Great, actually. Well, to be honest, my vision is a bit, um…cracked. But I'm sure it's fine. I can still function perfectly. Now let's find that lady! I need to make sure she's alright! She _is_ my responsibility, you know. And even though she doesn't talk, she is a pleasant person to work with. I mean, at least she doesn't object to any instructions I give her."

Nora didn't like that he was suddenly so concerned for this woman he had just met. She tried to swallow her jealousy, though.

"Don't worry, we'll find her."

"I'll help you find her, too," Rattmann said. "I know exactly where she took her."

"Really? Where?" Wheatley asked.

"She's making her test again."

Rattmann led them down a series of hallways and behind walls. Wheatley would occasionally open a panel and peek inside the test chamber that Chell was working through. Only once did he come back and say, "Oi! I think she saw me!"

Rattmann stopped at one chamber and hacked a radio to play a song. He giggled hysterically as "Exile Vilify" by the National played on the radio. He also started to paint like a maniac.

"Um, sir?" Nora said quietly. "We should probably get going. Before she finds us."

Rattmann just kept painting.

"Oh, for God's sake," Wheatley mumbled. Then he yelled, "Hey! Rattmann! We need to get out of here before we are killed!"

Suddenly, a panel shot out of the wall and just barely hit Nora's case. The force of the panel made her spin rapidly. Sparks flew out of the top of her case as she struck the rail.

"Nora!" Wheatley cried. "Are you alright?!"

Rattmann reached up and grabbed Nora's case with much force, stopping her from spinning. He jarred his arms, though, and cupped his hands to his elbows as he held his arms close to his body.

"Nora! You're case! It's been worn down!" Wheatley pointed out.

Nora could feel the intense heat on the top of her case where it had been scraped against the rail. It felt like a massive headache that a human might get on the top of their head. She didn't have time to reply, though, before another panel shot out and knocked her off the rail. Luckily, Rattmann was fast enough to catch her before she hit the ground. Her eye was closed and Wheatley panicked.

"No! Nora! Please wake up!" Wheatley pleaded. "Please please please!"

Nora opened her eye and her pupil had shrunk in fear. "Let's get out of here now," she said quietly.

Rattmann connected her to the management rail again and they hurried behind the walls. As they went on, they noticed that quite a number of birds had found their way into the facility. When Wheatley asked Rattmann how they could have gotten in, Rattmann just replied with "Wait, the birds are real?"

A bird suddenly swooped down and started pecking at Rattmann's unruly hair. He swiped at the bird, trying to hit it out of his hair.

"Rawr! Go away, bird!" Wheatley exclaimed, swinging his body around on the rail above the man's head. "I'm a vicious creature and I'll eat you! Rawr! Go away!"

The bird flew up at Wheatley and stabbed him in the eye before flying away with a lock of Rattmann's hair in it's beak.

At one point, they had to take a rest. They had gone up ahead of the lady so they had a minute or two for Rattmann to catch his breath.

"Hey, Nora," Wheatley said. "Remember when we were playing tag in the facility? When we'd noticed that the humans didn't seem to mind us going just about anywhere we wanted?"

"Yes, I remember that," Nora said. "We were speeding on the rails to catch each other. Some of the nanobots got angry with us, though, and scolded us for not performing our assigned duties."

"That kind of reminds me of what we're doing now," Wheatley said. "Remember what I'd do when I'd catch you?"

He advanced on her slowly and Nora started to giggle. "Don't you dare," she said.

Wheatley sent out a little current of electricity that traveled down the short distance of management rail between them, and Nora laughed as it tickled her.

"Wheatley! Stop it!" she laughed, closing her eye. "This isn't fair! You know I'm very ticklish!"

"I know!" Wheatley said, laughing, as well.

"I'll tickle you back!"

"Oh yeah?"

Nora opened her eye again and saw that Wheatley was staring at her softly. I mean, yeah, he was a robot, but Nora knew whenever Wheatley would be smiling or frowning or crying. She could tell just by looking at his "body" language. And if he'd had a face, it would be crinkled at the eyes and corners of the mouth as he would be genuinely smiling at her. And she would have been smiling back as she laughed.

"Will you two lovebirds cut it out?" Rattmann said, standing up. "We need to get moving before she figures out where we are."

Wheatley immediately stopped the current and turned to the man. "Who are you calling 'lovebirds'? What's _that_ suppose to mean, hm?"

"Nothing, never mind," Rattmann said.

"Alright then," Wheatley said. "Let's get going."

He started to lead them away again. Nora looked back at Rattmann and he winked at her knowingly.


	8. Chapter 8: Wheatley's Frustration

Rattmann liked hacking radios. He had to stop once again to fiddle with one of the Aperture Science radios.

"Just in case she finds one of my hideouts," he said. "I want her to know that I'm looking out for her."

"Well, be quick," Wheatley demanded. "She will be focusing her attention on this test chamber soon and I don't want to be in sight when she does."

He finished with the radio and dropped it into a Weighted Storage Cube dispensary along with a bunch of garbage. They hurried out of the test chamber and watched the woman run the test. Nora had to give credit where credit was due; this woman knew what she was doing. It didn't take her long to figure out how to solve each test, but she wasn't trying to rush through it.

"She's pretty good, isn't she?" Wheatley pointed out.

"She was also pretty good the first time she was subjected to tests," Rattmann said. "I barely needed to help her out."

"You? How did _you_ help her out?" Wheatley asked.

Rattmann took a paintbrush out of his pocket and said, "I gave her directions."

The test with a Companion Cube was next and when GLaDOS disintegrated them, Rattmann had to bite his lab coat to prevent himself from crying out. Nora didn't know why he was so fixated on the Cubes, but she didn't like seeing them be thoughtlessly destroyed either.

Wheatley peeked into this test through a panel but immediately came back. "That lady definitely saw me this time," he said. "She must not have tipped off _her_, though, with any facial expressions."

"You should talk to her soon," Nora said. "Find some way to get _her_ attention on something else so you can talk to the lady and tell her that we're going to help her."

"How do you propose I do that, Nora?" Wheatley asked. "Should I just teach the bloody birds how to say 'Hey! Look over here! Stop paying attention to the test subject and look at me'?"

"I'm just trying to help," Nora said, trying to hide how his sarcasm had hurt her.

"Yeah, lay off her," Rattmann said. "She's doing more thinking than _you_ are."

"Oh, what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Wheatley demanded. "I _am_ thinking! Do you just see me as some hunk of metal that just blindly follows this woman without any sort of plan?! Is _that_ what the two of you think?!"

"Of course not, Wheatley," Nora murmured. "I would never think that." Her gaze fell to the floor.

Now Wheatley felt really bad. "Nora, I'm sorry," he said gently. "It's just harder for me to come up with ideas than it is for you. I'm just being a twat."

"No, it's okay," Nora said. "I understand. Come on, we'd better get going. She just finished the test."


	9. Chapter 9: He's Alive!

Wheatley broke the Ariel Faith Plate. It was the first idea that came to mind and he went with it. He waited high up so that the lady would be able to see him but GLaDOS' cameras wouldn't. Nora and Rattmann hid around a corner. When the woman jumped on the Plate and saw him, though, the first words that Wheatley thought to say were "Hey! Hey, it's me! I'm okay!"

"She knows that!" Rattmann hissed.

When the woman came back up, Wheatley said, "You'll never believe what happened! There I was, just lying there, you thought I was done for, but this man came out and grabbed me. He took me with my friend Nora to safety. We've been following you this whole time, but one of the birds attacked the man! A bloody bird! Right? Couldn't believe it either. And then the bird pecked me in the eye and flew off with the man's hair! It was mad! Can you believe it?"

The ceiling started to lower and cut off any possible sight of the lady.

"I don't think she heard everything you said, Wheatley," Nora said. "She might not have heard you from down there."

"Really?" Wheatley asked, somehow surprised at this. "Oh well. I'm sure I'll get the opportunity to talk to her again."

"You should make sure that you both stay at a consistent level of ground for your next conversation," Rattmann suggested.

"I suppose."

"She's doing just fine for now, anyway," Rattmann pointed out. "Unless that psychotic computer gets bored soon, she should be fine."

"'Gets bored'? What do you mean?" Wheatley asked.

"Well, when she was done with the woman _before_….she tried to burn her."

"Oh. Well, we'd better help her escape soon, shouldn't we?"


	10. Chapter 10: Dumb Idea

As they followed the test subject, Wheatley came up with an idea to distract GLaDOS again.

"I'll drop some eggs into the door mechanism," he said. "Hopefully, it will break the door and _she_ will have to go take care of it. Then I will get a chance to talk to her."

Neither Nora or Rattmann said anything for a minute. What a dumb idea it was!

"Well? What do you think?" Wheatley asked.

"Where will you get the eggs?" Nora asked.

"Okay, hear me out. We'll disguise Rattmann's hair to look like a nest," Wheatley said. "Then we just wait for a bird to lay eggs."

"I'm not in favor of that idea at all," Rattmann mumbled. He looked around and spotted a nest between two horizontal pipes. He climbed up to the pipes and snatched the nest. "Let's get out of here before the mother spots us. Quick, carry these on your handle and drop them into the next door mechanism."

He set the nest on Wheatley's bottom handle and Wheatley hurried ahead.

"By the way," Rattmann said as he and Nora took their time to follow, "I heard what you said to Wheatley when I was carrying you both in that sheet. I didn't know you constructs _could_ feel love."

Nora looked away in embarrassment. "Oh," she said.

"I don't know why you love him, but I think it's sweet that there's _any_ love in this cold place."

"He's just nice to be around," Nora said quietly.

"Well, maybe for _you_, but I find him to be a little annoying."

"You just need to be around him more."

"I'd be fine with the contrary."

"Ah! Bird! Bird! Bird! Bird!" Wheatley came rushing toward them with a bird flying around him. Rattmann grabbed the bird's leg and pulled it away from Wheatley.

"Blimey! Thanks, mate!" Wheatley said.

"Get back to her!" Rattmann said as he struggled with the bird that was now attacking him.

"Oh, right." Wheatley hurried back to the test subject.

"Rattmann?" Nora asked. "Are you okay?"

Rattmann managed to grab the bird and it become limp in his clenched fist. He looked at it and realized that he had accidentally broken its neck. He stared at it a little longer before releasing his grip on it. It made a wet, fleshy sound as it hit the floor.

"R-Rattmann?" Nora said timidly.

"Please," he said, looking up at her with tears in his eyes. He managed to keep a steady voice, though. "Please, call me Doug. Don't call me by my last name anymore. I don't want to be a rat."

"Come on!" Wheatley called.

They caught up with Wheatley and they went on.

"Any ideas on how to help her escape?" Rattmann asked, wiping his eyes on his filthy sleeve.

"I haven't a clue," Wheatley said. "But I _am_ thinking."

"Don't just try to open a panel and call her over to you," Nora said. "That would be like inviting GLaDOS to smack you with the panels."

"Give me some credit, love," Wheatley said, rolling his eye. "I can come up with a better plan than _that_."


	11. Chapter 11: I Made It All Up

Doug kept flinching every time the turrets started to fire. This was a reasonable reaction for a human, but Nora noticed he would put his hand down to his leg where there was a hole in his pants; it looked like it could have been a bullet hole. Dark dried blood stained his grimy, tattered slacks. It made her uncomfortable to think of him getting shot by a turret, though, so she tried to push the thought out of her mind. He looked genuinely concerned for the lady as she handled the turrets.

"She seems to know what she's doing with them," Nora assured Doug. Doug just nodded and touched the bullet hole on his pants sleeve.

"There are a lot of them, though," Wheatley said in response to Nora's comment. "_She_ sure likes to use them, doesn't she?"

Nora quickly sent Wheatley an email saying "Try to be more considerate of him. Didn't you see the bullet hole on his pant leg?"

When Wheatley received the message, he made no attempt to be discreet as he stared at Doug's leg. Doug caught him looking and scowled.

"What?" he asked.

"Were you shot by a turret?" Wheatley asked.

"Yes, I was. It was the second most painful experience in my life."

"What was the first?"

"Watching my colleagues die as the facility was flooded with neurotoxin."

They came to another test that Doug had settled by once. He showed them the paintings on the walls that he had made during one of his fits of complete insanity. Wheatley was creeped out by it but Nora found it fascinating. The painting of Chell asleep was beautiful—though not as beautiful as the larger painting of her.

Rattmann looked really anxious when the lady passed through the test.

"Didn't you guys hear her talking about a 'surprise'?" he asked them.

"Who? The lady?" Wheatley asked.

"No! The computer! I'm positive it's a trick."

He hurried ahead to see what was going to happen and the constructs did their best to keep up. They came to a dark room that the elevator led to.

"Is someone in here?" a voice asked from all around them.

Nora was quick to act and opened up a secret door in the wall. The others heard it open and they rushed through it.

"I'll get you sooner or later," GLaDOS said as the door shut.

"That was too close!" Wheatley exclaimed.

"Shh!" Doug said. "She's coming. Be ready for anything."

Then GLaDOS' voice came from the room again. "Initiating surprise in three…two….one."

They could hear the lights switch on and there was a pause before GLaDOS said, "I made it all up." Then there was the sound of a party horn being blown. "Surprise."

The trio sighed in relief. All of them had gotten the idea that GLaDOS was going to kill the lady, but they had all thought of different ways that she would have gone about doing that. They moved on, thinking of how to help her escape. Surely GLaDOS would get bored of her again soon, and this time she'd give a _real_ surprise.

"We need to handicap her somehow," Doug mused aloud.

"The lady?" Wheatley asked.

"No! Of course not! I mean the rogue computer that wants us all dead!"

"How could we possibly handicap her?" Nora asked.

"I don't know yet," Doug said. "But there has to be some way."

"Oh, wait! I have an idea!" Wheatley exclaimed. Before they could ask him about it, though, he rushed away down the management rail. They tried to follow him but they lost him around a corner.

"W-Wheatley?" Nora said in a small voice.


	12. Chapter 12: Oops

Doug and Nora went ahead to the next test, hoping they'd run into Wheatley on the way. Nora was running through ideas about where Wheatley could have gone and why? Had he found a way to help the lady escape and he had gone ahead to do it? Had he figured out how to handicap GLaDOS? Or had he just turned coward and decided to run away? Nora hoped it wasn't the last one. Wheatley usually didn't run away from her so unexpectedly.

"I'm sure he's okay," Doug assured. "I know you're worried about him, but he'll come back."

"I sure hope so," Nora said.

"Oi! Nora!" Wheatley did come back. Sort of. He was waiting for them up ahead. Nora sped toward him and stopped right in front of him. She meant to be relieved, but it came out in the form of rage.

"Where did you go?!" she demanded. "I was so worried! I thought you had just left me so you wouldn't have to face _her!_"

"What?! Why would I do that?! I would never leave you just because I was afraid. I already told you I'd never leave you, remember? And if we're both in a dangerous situation, _I'm_ going to be the one to face it before _you_ have to. How could you think that?"

Nora looked down in shame. "I was…I was just scared."

"Don't be afraid of me leaving you. You're everything I've got. Why would I give up everything, Nora?"

Doug cleared his throat loudly. "Where _did_ you go?" he asked.

"Listen, we're going to break her out soon, and I've figured out how to stop _her_," Wheatley said in a rush. "Whatever _she_ used during their first duel we will take away. Now what did she use?"

"Neurotoxin," Doug answered immediately. "Definitely get rid of that."

"And turrets," Nora said. "Just in case. I mean, you never know."

"Excellent! I'll take the lady to the turret manufacturing wing first, then we'll take care of that neurotoxin. Quick, follow me!"

He hurried away but they were able to keep up with him this time.

"Oi! Jerry! I've got a friend that just needs to get through here. Is it alright if I bring her through really quick?"

"You're suppose to be working, 'Wheatley'!" Jerry said in his tiny Nanobot voice. Doug couldn't understand him but the two constructs could. "You constructs are always slacking off! Maybe I shouldn't have hired you!"

"Jerry, it'll just be a minute!"

"The human needs to go around! _He_ can't slide up the vertical rails, can he?"

They turned to Doug who just looked back at them with indifference.

"I'm fine with that," he said. "It'll be easier for me. I know my way around."

"Sorry, Doug," Nora said.

"Really, it's fine. Take care." He dashed off to find a vent to climb through.

"Nora, come on!" Wheatley said, starting to ascend on the vertical rail

"How are you going to help her escape?" Nora asked as she followed.

"Okay, I know you said not to do this…..but I _am_ just going to open some panels and beckon her toward me. _But_ I'm also going to shut off the power to the test chamber."

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Nora said.

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Don't worry! I know what I'm doing! I've thought out the key points of the escape."

"You know, if we fail, she will kill us."

"Which is why we _won't_ fail, Nora. Don't worry."

The rail slowly turned horizontal and they went on for a bit longer until Wheatley suddenly stopped. He turned toward Nora with a serious look in his eye.

"Nora, do me a favor," he said soberly.

"What?"

"I want you to follow close behind again, but go much higher. Just in case she tries to attacks us. I don't want you to get hurt again."

Nora noticed that he was staring at the worn down spot on the top of her case.

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "I want to stay with you this time. I got so worried when you left earlier—"

"Nora, _please_," he said. Now he looked right into her eye. "Remember when I tried to hack a door open with you nearby, but instead of opening the door, I accidentally dropped a Weighted Storage Cube on you and knocked you off your rail?"

"Yes, but I forgave you for that, don't worry."

"I still feel bad about it. I never want to hurt you because I screwed up ever again."

"Wheatley, don't worry—"

"No! Nora! I _will_ worry! I'll worry all I want!" His gaze was intense now but he looked like he didn't know what to do with himself.

"Wheatley," Nora said quietly.

"Nora, I love you, damn it!"

Nora stared at him in disbelief. Wheatley's pupil shrank in utter shock at what he had said. He looked around awkwardly but Nora kept staring at him. The silence was painful but neither of them wanted to speak first. However, they were running out of time.

"I, um….She's almost here," Wheatley said. "Y-You'd better get up higher, dear. I'll see you in a bit."

Nora didn't argue this time. She just sent a little current down the rail to tickle him. Then she quickly ascended on the rail until she was about fifty feet higher than Wheatley. Wheatley looked happier, though. He looked up at her and she could tell that he was bashful.


	13. Chapter 13: Escape

Was what Wheatley had said to her true? Did he actually love her? Why else would he have said it? Maybe he was just confused about his emotions. Nora certainly was.

Wheatley shut off the power and opened up some panels to make a door.

"Hey, buddy!" he said in a ridiculous accent. If Nora had had hands she would have face-palmed herself. "I'm speaking in an accent that is beyond her range of hearing. I know I'm early, but we have to go right _now_. Walk casually toward my position and we'll go shut 'er down!"

_Does he really think that will work?! _Nora thought.

"Look—metal ball, I _can_ hear you," GLaDOS said.

"Run! I don't need to do the voice. Run!" Wheatley yelled. He opened the wall more and turned on a concentrated sunlight bridge for the lady to run across. She was quick as she followed Wheatley and so was Nora. Wheatley gave a quick overview of the situation as he led the lady down a catwalk. GLaDOS tried to beckon her toward the "last test", but the lady wasn't stupid. She kept following Wheatley onto a different light bridge. The light bridge quickly turned off, though, and the lady landed on a lower catwalk. Unfortunately, she got trapped in a room full of turrets. Nora tried to ask if the lady was alright, but Wheatley was too loud as he panicked. This woman was a pro, though, and was able to get out and even got rid of a stray turret a little later.

_Quite impressive,_ Nora thought.

Suddenly, a huge steel wall started coming straight for them. GLaDOS was trying really hard to kill them. Nora flew down the rail as fast as she could, looking down at Wheatley to make sure he was safe, as well.

"Hurry! This way!" Wheatley instructed. He ascended a sloped rail and came up to meet Nora on a parallel rail. "I'll meet you on the other side!" he called out to the lady. "Hello, dear," he said to Nora. "I haven't much time to chat. Keep following me at a safe distance and we'll find time to talk." Then he hurried away to meet the lady.

Nora was confused. He didn't seem to acknowledge his declaration of love earlier. Had she _imagined_ him saying that? She very much doubted so. Maybe he would mention it later. She went up high again and watched them.

"Ah! Brilliant!" Wheatley said as he met up with the lady. "You made it through. Well done. Okay, follow me. We've still got work to do. At least she can't touch us back here."

Suddenly, the lights started to shut off all around them and they were left in complete darkness. Nora was scared because she couldn't see if Wheatley was alright. She felt better , though, when she heard him say, "Okay, alright. So I've got an idea, but it is _bloody_ dangerous. Here we go"

A light flicked on from below and Wheatley screamed. Nora jumped at this and started to panic again. The beam of light seemed to be coming from Wheatley. The engineers had told them both that if they ever turned on their flashlights they would die. Was Wheatley dead?!

"Oh, for God's sake—They told me that if I ever turned this flashlight on, I would _die,_" Wheatley said. Nora sighed in relief. "They told me that about everything. I mean, I don't even know why they bothered_ giving_ me this stuff if they didn't want me to use it. It's pointless! Mad!" He continued on his way while the lady and Nora followed.

Wheatley started talking about a story where the caretaker chops up a bunch of robots and Nora rolled her eye. Wheatley could be accidentally silly sometimes. She loved that about him. Then he started talking about how he could have been working in manufacturing, but some other bot was chosen over him. She wished Wheatley would just let that go since manufacturing was overrated anyway. And besides, how hard could it be to watch after humans? She disregarded that question in light of the incident with the Relaxation Chamber.

It was really dark as they wandered around, and she could only catch glimpses of his eye once in awhile. Was he worried about her as she followed him in the darkness? Was he looking up to try to catch a glimpse of her? She couldn't be sure.

When they got to turret manufacturing, Wheatley couldn't follow the lady down a spiral tube to an open room. "Right," he said. "Well, I'm gonna take this route down the back way. Seeya at the bottom! Good luck!" He slipped through a little passage and Nora quickly followed him while the lady was preoccupied.

"Wheatley?" Nora called softly.

"I'm right here, love," he said in the dark.


	14. Chapter 14: Awkward Moment

Wheatley turned on his flashlight and stared at Nora. Nora squinted back at him. She wished there was a light other than Wheatley's flashlight. It was so bright in her eye. But once she remembered that it was just a human reflex to squint against light, she opened her eye. Wheatley couldn't take his gaze away from her beautiful purple eye. But Nora just felt awkward and nervous. She wanted to say something to him—_anything_—but she didn't want to break the silence.

"It's too bad constructs don't have a special way to show affection," Wheatley said, looking down shyly. "I suppose this would be the moment when humans would—what do they do?—Kiss?"

"Um, yeah," Nora said.

"Nora, I….I don't care whether or not you love me back. Well, actually, that's a lie. I _do_ care. I really do….But…I think I might be okay if you didn't. I mean, I would still want to be your friend."

Nora didn't say anything to this. She didn't _know_ what to say to this. She was stunned. Was it really love he felt? Was it really love that _she_ felt? No one had ever explained it to them before.

"I….I _think_ I love you," Wheatley went on. "I mean, you're my best friend and I always want to be with you. I feel great when I'm around you, and I just always want to keep you safe. I also love to hear you laugh and you're so smart. And your optic is so lovely."

Nora looked away nervously. Was this what love was? She felt the same way about him. She had always gotten excited when she had known that he was going to visit her and she had always been overjoyed whenever he had made a surprise visit to her department.

"Nora?" Wheatley said. "Are you not going to talk to me anymore? If so, I don't think I'd be able to take that. That'd be it. I'd just give up on everything."

"Wheatley," Nora finally said. "I….I feel the same. I-I love you, too."

Wheatley's pupil shrank in shock at her words. "Really? Um…Could you say it again?"

Nora giggled. "I love you, too," she said quietly.

"Ahhhhh, Nora," Wheatley sighed. "You have no idea how good it feels to hear you say that back. I mean, I've been struggling with this for awhile. At first, I didn't know _what_ I felt. Then I didn't know how to act around you and I got all nervous and tried to avoid you. You remember that, right? Then I decided to act casual and pretend that nothing was wrong when the whole time I just wanted to say something to you about it and—"

"Wheatley," Nora interrupted, laughing a little. "What about the test subject?"

"Oh! Right!" Wheatley said. "I had completely forgotten about her. Ugh! I want to talk to you more, but I really should get going. We'll find more time to talk, I promise. Just….Say it one more time?"

Nora sent Wheatley an email containing "I love you :)"

"I'm going to be looking at that every five seconds, love," he said. "I might get too distracted to help the subject. Anyway, come on. Follow at a safe distance, dear."

He led her through the dark passage and around the Turret Redemption Line. He told her to go up high or behind the walls or something as he headed up to meet the lady. Nora went down below this time and watched as the lady entered the room. The lady watched as defective turrets were flung into the furnace as she followed the catwalk. Wheatley introduced her to the Turret Control Center. He explained how the scanner determined which turrets were good and which were junk. The lady didn't seem very impressed by this, though. When Wheatley said he was going to hack the door, Nora just thought, _Oh. More hacking. How did he get so good at this?_ However, she wasn't expecting him to just break the freaking window by flinging his body at it! Nora just shook her head. He must have gotten cocky after hearing that someone loved him.

"Done! Hacked," Wheatley said as if he knew what he was doing.

The lady took the turret template out of the scanner to try to shut down production, but the scanner just continued by memory.

_Well, there goes _that_ plan,_ Nora thought. But the lady looked around, determined to find some way of stopping the production. She watched the scanner toss a few bad turrets before leaving the room to go back the way she came.

"Wait, where you going? Where you going?" Wheatley called after her. "Oh, have you got an idea? Well, okay, alright, just do your idea, then come straight back."

Nora watched as the woman went back toward the furnace hatch and grabbed a buggy turret. The turret seemed confused as it was carried back to the Control Room where Wheatley was waiting. Wheatley was impressed by her idea.

"Okay, keep your eye on the turret line," he instructed. "I'm gonna go and hack the door open." He went to the other side of the door and looked at a bunch of computers.

"Nora," he whispered quickly. "Help me with this one, will you?" Then he said loud enough for the lady to hear, "Okay. I'm about to start hacking. It's a little bit more complicated than it looked from your side. It should take about ten minutes. Keep one eye on the door."

_It won't take me _that_ long,_ Nora thought as she concentrated on the lock. She was surprised at how quickly she hacked it. The lady came through and Nora quickly hid in the shadows. Wheatley spun around and whined about how easily the door had come unlocked when he was really just jealous of Nora's mad skills.


	15. Chapter 15: Left Alone

Bring Your Daughter to Work Day had been a disaster. Nora remembered it as Wheatley explained it to the lady. She tried to push the memories out of her head as they pressed on. She had to focus on Wheatley, not terrible memories. They came to the neurotoxin generator that stood tall in the middle of a very wide room. Tubes ran out of it that were used for pumping the poisonous gas out to the rest of the facility. Nora had never been into this room before. She worried about the possibility of a gas leak while the lady was around. The lady would certainly die if someone were to cut a gash in the generator. The generator looked sturdy enough so as not to be cut open easily, but that posed a different problem; how would they take it down?

They came to where the crappy turrets were crushed between two large spinning blades.

"Ha! _There's_ our handiwork," Wheatley said. "I shouldn't laugh, really. They do feel pain. Of a sort. It's all simulated. But, uh, real enough for _them_, I suppose."

Nora sighed with a little agitation. Wheatley could be very kind, but sometimes, he wasn't able to put himself in another person's shoes. Nora supposed that the pain that these turrets felt was as real as the love that the constructs felt. She wanted to tell him this, but now was not the time. They had business to attend to.

They came to a locked door that opened at the push of a button. Wheatley said there was no way to hack it, but almost immediately afterwards, got distracted by the laser that was cutting panels.

_Focus, Wheatley, dear,_ Nora thought.

Then Wheatley suggested that they let the gentle hum of the laser soothe them so they could think clearly on how to open the door. The lady just looked at him and pressed the button.

"What are you doing?! We don't know what that bu—oh! The door's open. Well done."

He went into the neurotoxin control room and the lady watched him from the outside. The computer was password protective, but Wheatley was still confident. He tried to note everything in the room to help figure out what to do, but that did nothing. He decided he would try to persuade the Neurotoxin Central Control Circuit to let him into the system long enough to shut down the generator. Nora wanted to help him again, but she had no idea how to go about hacking a password protected computer. It would take ages to guess the password. Perhaps Doug knew the password. Should she go find him?

While Wheatley and Nora didn't know what to do, the lady had been studying the generator and had noticed the panels that traveled around the room. She also noticed that there was a portal-conductive wall that the laser bore into. She decided that if they couldn't shut it down, she'd have to cut off the supply manually. She positioned the portals perfectly and the laser cut through four of the large tubes.

"Do you smell neurotoxin?" Wheatley asked. "Hold on! The neurotoxin levels are going down!"

Nora was impressed again by this lady's wit. She could think her way out of any trouble. The lady cut the rest of the tubes, but an alarm started going off and the whole room shook as a robotic voice said, "Warning: neurotoxin pressure has reached dangerously unlethal levels."

The generator collapsed in on itself and it fell over. A tube in the room that Wheatley was in broke and started to vacuum all the air out of the room. The door broke open and the lady tried to hang out to the doorway.

"Ha! The tube's broken!" Wheatley exclaimed. "We can ride it straight to her! I can't hold on! Come on!"

The lady stepped into the room and Wheatley detached himself from the rail. They both quickly got sucked into the tube.

"Wheatley!" Nora called. "Oh no! What do I do? Do I go into the tube, as well? But another tube might pull me out of it and I'd be separated from them! I wish I didn't have to be alone! I wish I had someone else to help me! They're going straight to _her_ chamber—"

Nora stopped as she realized what she had to do. They were going to her chamber. That meant Nora would have to go there, too. She hurried off in the direction of her chamber. There was a possibility that GLaDOS would kill her before she even got close enough to find Wheatley on the way, but she must have been so engrossed with the lady that Nora was able to openly go through a test chamber without her noticing. This was good for Nora, but what if GLaDOS decided that Wheatley was a threat and killed him? Nora tried not to think about it, but she couldn't get the image of GLaDOS crushing his case in her metal claw out of her head.


	16. Chapter 16: All I've Done Is Sacrifice

Nora managed to get to the outside of the chamber just as GLaDOS brought the lady into the room in a glass box. There was enough space between the panels for her to see everything that was going on. Things looked bleak for the lady, but Nora was sure that she would find a way out. The lady was already studying the room thoughtfully. GLaDOS set turrets down on the outside of the glass box that held the woman, but they were the defective turrets so they blew up when they tried to fire at her.

"Oh," GLaDOS said. "You were busy back there."

The woman just stared at her.

"Well, I suppose we could just sit in this room and glare at each other until somebody drops dead….But I have a better idea." A tube started to move in toward the lady's glass room. "It's your old friend deadly neurotoxin. If I were you, I'd take a deep breath and hold it."

Nora saw Wheatley come tumbling through the tube and he fell on the floor. The glass shattered so the lady was free to walk around. However, she was kind enough to pick Wheatley up first. Nora was so happy to see him safe. Well, not exactly _safe_. They were still in front of a vengeful core that controlled the facility. But he was virtually unharmed for the moment.

"Warning: Central core is 80% corrupt," said a computer from the intercoms.

"That's funny. I don't _feel_ corrupt," she told the computer. "In fact, I feel pretty good."

"Alternate core detected," the computer said.

"Oh! That's _me_ they're talking about!" Wheatley exclaimed. Nora wondered if maybe it was talking about herself, but she wasn't even in the chamber so it was impossible. Right?

"To initiate core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."

Wait, were they going to replace GLaDOS with Wheatley? If so, Wheatley would be in charge of the whole facility. Was that really such a good idea? The lady brought Wheatley over to the receptacle, but she hesitated.

"I've got an idea!" Wheatley said. "Do what it says, plug me in!"

"Do not plug that little idiot into my mainframe," GLaDOS said threateningly.

"No, you _should_ plug that little idiot into the mainframe," Wheatley insisted.

They went back and forth on this subject until the lady finally plugged Wheatley in. Nora was nervous that something bad might happen while Wheatley was plugged into it. She wanted to voice her fears, but she also didn't want to get caught.

A stalemate was detected. The lady would have to go press the stalemate resolution button. The lady started to go toward the button, but GLaDOS flung her backwards with a panel. The lady was able to pop a portal in front of the panel that had flung her away and another portal by the button. GLaDOS tried to block her way with more panels but the lady was too smart for that. She was quick with her portals and got to the button. She hesitated at the button, though, as she had with plugging Wheatley into the receptacle. Nora understood. Neither of them knew what would happen exactly if the lady pressed the button. GLaDOS kept trying to persuade her not to and Wheatley encouraged her to. Of course the lady listened to Wheatley over GLaDOS, though. She pressed the button and hurried back to Wheatley. GLaDOS was shocked into submission and she hung limp from the ceiling. Wheatley and the receptacle were lowered into the floor.

"Wait, what if this hurts?" Wheatley asked, this only coming to him as an afterthought. "What if this really hurts? Ohhhh, I didn't think of that."

"Oh, it will," GLaDOS said as she just hung in the middle of the room. "_Believe_ me, it will."

"Are you just saying that or is it really gonna hurt? You're just saying that, aren't you? No, you're _not_. It _is_ gonna hurt, isn't it? Exactly how painful are we talking about—" His sentence was cut off by him screaming in pain. Nora flinched at his pain. She wished it had been her to go into the receptacle so she would feel the pain instead.

Little robotic claws reached up out of the floor beneath GLaDOS and grabbed her. They pulled at her eye and panels came up out of the floor to surround her. GLaDOS screamed in agony as she was ripped out of the giant body, and Nora actually felt a little bad for her. The lady looked anxious about what might happen next. The whole scene was bone-chilling and Nora wanted it to end so badly.

Suddenly, the lights turned on and at the same time, the panels lowered to reveal Wheatley's case on the giant body that was once GLaDOS. Her head lay a few feet away, still and quiet. Wheatley was so excited, though. He spun around and showed off his new control over the facility. He was so happy and Nora was happy to see him happy. He was being a bit braggy about how large he was now, though. It was getting a little annoying. He called up a lift from the surface for the lady, but immediately went back to bragging.

"Look how small you are down there," he said to the lady. "I can barely see you. Very tiny and insignificant."

This seemed pretty rude of him. He could be rude, but this was a bit much even for him.

"Wheatley, what's gotten into you?" Nora murmured anxiously.

Then a problem came up about how Wheatley would get into the lift while also keeping it going. Nora wondered how she herself would get out. Where was Doug? He would have been really useful right now.

"I tell you, I knew it was gonna be cool to be in charge of everything," Wheatley told the lady. He showed off his power again, but Nora scowled at him. What a lie! So much for not wanting to be responsible for everything! It must have been the power going to his head. Hopefully it would pass soon. He started the lift and the lady rose higher and higher toward the ceiling. Wheatley started to laugh lightly at how large he was now, but the laughter turned dark and sinister. The lights dimmed and an ominous red glow from the floor below him illuminated his face, making him look…well, evil.

"Actually, why do we have to leave right now?" Wheatley asked. "Do you have any idea how good this feels?"

"Wheatley….." Nora whispered.

"_I_ did this," Wheatley said. "Tiny little Wheatley did this."

"You didn't do anything," GLaDOS said weakly. "_She_ did all the work."

"Oh, _really?_ That's what the two of you think, is it?" Wheatley asked, starting to become angry. "Well, maybe it's time I _did_ something then."

He dragged GLaDOS' head down into the floor beneath him and the little claws started to work on her again.

"And don't think I'm not on to you, too, lady," Wheatley said, now looking really mad. "You know what you are? _Selfish_. I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here, and what have you sacrificed? Nothing. Zero. All you've done is boss me around. Well, now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's me."

Sacrifice? Was he talking about Nora and how he had risked the life of his friend—not to mention his own—to get the lady to safety? Nora didn't know how to feel about this. Did she really mean that much to him that he would be this upset? The lady had sacrificed her own life, but Nora could see where Wheatley was coming from. Still, Nora didn't like the look of betrayal and hurt that the lady displayed on her face. Wheatley had been _her_ friend, as well.

The sound of a kitchen timer went off and Wheatley pulled a potato battery out of the floor. He showed it to the lady and told her that GLaDOS now lived in it. GLaDOS was in no position to insult Wheatley, but she managed to as she explained how he was designed to be a moron. He was an intelligence dampening sphere but he had failed.

"I AM _NOT_ A MORON!" Wheatley yelled, smacking the potato against the glass on the lift.

"Yes, you are!" GLaDOS shouted back. "You're the moron they built to make me an idiot!"

"Well, how about _now?!_" Wheatley said, shattering the glass by shoving her into the lift. "_Now_ who's a moron?! Could a moron punch—you—into—this—pit?!" He pounded the lift down with a metal claw for emphasis (and to punch them into the pit.) "HUH?! COULD A MORON DO THAT?!" The lift shook. "Uh oh." Then it started to fall down a very deep pit.

"Wheatley, no!" Nora shouted. "What have you done?!"

"Nora?" Wheatley called, turning around to see where she was. "Nora, love! Where are you? Have you seen my new body?"

Nora didn't say anything. She was too scared to with his current temperament. Wheatley moved all the panels around the chamber until he found her, pupil small with fear and trembling.

"Nora, what's wrong?" he asked, moving his enormous body until their eyes were only a foot away from each other. "You look frightened, love."


	17. Chapter 17: The Itch Begins

Nora didn't say anything to Wheatley. She felt totally insignificant as she stared at his massive body. He caught her looking and she knew he was grinning internally.

"You like the new body? Pretty impressive, eh? I can control everything in the facility!" His amusement suddenly disappeared. "But…I feel a bit, er, uncomfortable. Like I need to _do_ something. Maybe it would help to redesign the facility. Would you like to help me design my own chamber? Why do you look so scared, love? It's starting to get on my nerves."

"Why did you do that, Wheatley?" Nora asked. "Why did you push that lift down into that pit? I haven't heard it crash yet which means they're still falling."

"What? Don't feel bad for them!" Wheatley said. "That lady was so ungrateful! She had no idea what I had to risk to get her into this room. I could have lost you, dear. You got hurt because you wanted to help her get out. Bless your sweet, little simulated heart. She didn't sacrifice anything but her own, trivial life. And that stupid potato is the one that hurt you in the first place."

"But that woman didn't deserve to die," Nora said.

"Nora, you're being far too kind toward this woman."

"What did you _do?!_" growled a voice.

Wheatley looked away from Nora and he narrowed his eye. She turned around and saw Doug approaching them with a furious look.

"How could you crush that lift like that?!" he demanded. "I could hear what was happening from a mile away! I saw the lift as it fell through the level I was on! You were supposed to help her! I didn't fix you so you could kill her!"

"You're not the boss of me!" Wheatley shouted. "I don't need her! All I need is Nora! And something else but I don't quite know what yet…."

"That feeling you're having is the urge to test, you idiot!" Doug yelled at him. "You're going to need to subject someone to testing and you just sent that woman falling to her death!"

"I need someone to subject to testing?" Wheatley asked. "How about _you?_ I could make _you_ test for me!"

Wheatley grabbed Doug's lab coat with a metal claw and hoisted him up. Doug was quick, though, and slipped out of his coat. He landed on the floor in a surprisingly graceful crouch and ran back through the way he came in. Wheatley tossed the coat away and turned back to Nora.

"Nora," he said. "I want you to be my queen. You could be Queen of Aperture! How about that?"

"I wanted to _leave_ this place with you," Nora said. "Now there's no way we could since the facility would shut down if you just popped off that body."

"Right! So why not just stay here with me?" Wheatley asked. "Come on! Just try it. There's nothing we can do now but enjoy each other's company forever in the facility. Now, what do you think I should do with my chamber? Girls are supposed to be good at designing things, right?"

There was nothing Nora could do but just go along with this. She didn't like Wheatley's cocky new attitude but she was stuck with it now. She didn't talk to him much, though. He would ask her questions about where she thought something should go and she'd just give him short answers. He kept showing off his complete control over the facility and it really annoyed Nora. He _did_ tell her that he loved her but it just didn't sound as sincere as the first time. Wheatley had changed and Nora hated it. She wanted her clumsy, ditzy friend back. She longed for the good old days when they would race each other around the facility and get in trouble with the Nanobots. Now, Wheatley just bossed the Nanobots around all the time.

After he had rearranged what he now called his "lair," he pondered how he should find test subjects.

"What if I used turrets?" he asked. "What do you think, dear?"

"Turrets can't test," Nora said curtly. "They can't walk."

"Well, what else could I use…."

He tried to create a test chamber by just building a room with a trench in the middle (for a sense of "danger"). He set up large two-way monitors so he "could watch the testing better." Then he positioned a Weight Storage Cube dispensary tube above a large button and just dropped a Cube on it himself.

"Nothing," he said, disappointed. "Maybe I need to have someone else do it."

Nora didn't respond to this. She didn't care whatsoever. So Wheatley put a smaller button on the other side of the trench that would drop the Cube.

"Press the button for me, won't you, love?" he asked Nora.

"I would rather not….dear," Nora said.

"Oh, come on," he pleaded. "It will make me feel better. You don't want me to be in _pain_, do you?"

_That's playing dirty,_ Nora thought. _He knows I don't want him to be in pain, but I also don't want to encourage his new attitude._

"Nora…love…"

Nora sighed and went down to the test chamber. She looked down at the smaller button, then looked up at the monitor. "I can't reach it," she told Wheatley as he watched her on the big monitor.

"I'll lower your rail then," Wheatley said. He lowered her down and she tapped the button with a handle. The Cube dropped onto the large button. "Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaah," he sighed. "That felt good. That felt really good."

"I don't want to do this anymore, Wheatley," Nora said.

"Alright, you can do another test," he replied.

"No, I don't want to test."

"Alright, I'll get something else to test while we watch. What if I make Cubes that just walk onto the buttons?"

"Wheatley, I don't want to do this anymore. I want you to put a different construct in charge so we can go back to the way things used to be."

"You don't think I can handle this power, do you?" Wheatley asked, irritated by her request. "I think I've shown that I can."

"You've become a jerk!" Nora blurted. "I don't like what you've become! I want the old Wheatley back. _My_ Wheatley."

"I _am_ your Wheatley!" he said. "And how dare you call me a jerk! After all I've done for you! I made you the Queen of Aperture!"

"I don't want to be a queen!" Nora cried, her voice shaking with tears she could never shed. "I just want to be your Nora, your best friend. And I want you to be my little Wheatley who doesn't kill people."

"Oh, can't you just let that go?! They deserved it! How could you want something so _insignificant?!_ The old Wheatley was _nothing_ compared to what I am now! He was just a pathetic little bot who was worthless….And maybe you are, too, if you can't love me with my power. Maybe I should just get rid of you, too."

Nora stared at the monitor in horror. "Wheatley," she sobbed. "Wh-why would you do that? I thought we were friends. I thought you loved me."

"I thought so, too," Wheatley said coldly. He sent a panel flying toward her.


	18. Chapter 18: There Is Still Purpose

The panel hit her hard and Nora flew off her management rail. She landed in the trench in the middle of the test chamber.

"Wheatley, why?!" she cried.

"'Why?!' _Why_ can't you just love me now that I'm better?! You're so pathetic down there! Rolling around on the floor, unable to move wherever you like without the help of a management rail or a stinking human. I should crush you. You're useless to me now."

He smacked her sideways with another panel and she screamed in pain. "WHEATLEY! PLEASE STOP!"

Rattmann suddenly jumped in through a hole that was high up in the wall. He landed gracefully and jumped down to Nora. He grabbed her by the handles and managed to climb back out of the trench.

"PUT HER DOWN! " Wheatley roared. "SHE'S MINE! IF I WANT TO SMASH HER, I _WILL!_"

"Fuck you!" Doug growled.

Wheatley sent a panel racing toward the man, but Doug was able to dodge the attack and slipped into the gap where the panel had just been. Nora couldn't stop sobbing. This was the worst pain she had ever felt. Not only did Wheatley hate her now but he had damaged her case more than GLaDOS had. Wheatley could be heard having a temper tantrum as he destroyed the test chamber he had created.

"Are you okay, Nora?" Doug asked when he was sure that Wheatley couldn't hear them. He set her in his lap as he rested on the ground.

"No," Nora replied softly.

"What's wrong?"

"Wheatley hates me," Nora said, trying her best to restrain a sob. "He tried to kill me because I said I wanted things to go back to the way they were before that woman came along. I should have kept quiet and just went along with his madness."

"That wouldn't have been fair to you, though," Doug pointed out.

"I just want Wheatley to love me and be happy."

Doug looked at the core sympathetically. He was surprised that he could feel so sorry for a machine like her. She was just an AI. When had they developed emotions? Why had Aperture even made the AIs self-aware? It was a terrible idea. He caressed her damaged case as if he were stroking someone's hair.

"He doesn't hate you, Nora," he said. "It's all that power he suddenly has. I mean, he was just a Personality Construct that looked after sleeping humans before all this happened. Now he controls everything in his environment. There are some people who can handle the power given to them and become excellent leaders; then there are those like Wheatley who get cocky and stupid and decide they can just do whatever they want regardless of anyone's feelings or safety."

"But what should I do now?" Nora asked. "I have no purpose here anymore."

"That's not true, Nora," Doug insisted. "I stayed alive after my colleagues died because I knew there was still someone to save. There were many test subjects that were in stasis, and one in particular had the tenacity that I needed—that we all needed—to defeat GLaDOS."

"You know, I don't even remember this," Nora said. "I don't remember anyone defeating _her_ but Wheatley does."

"You were in a completely different unit of the facility," Doug explained. "Wheatley must have been close enough to feel the walls shake as the meltdown occurred. He probably also heard it from the Nanobots."

"Yeah, I guess," Nora said. "No wonder I hadn't heard about it since I would never talk to anyone. But what were you saying about people to save?"

"There's still someone we can save," Doug said mysteriously. He didn't say anymore, though. He suddenly heard the sound of a turret crying out in pain.

"What are you doing to me? No! I don't want to go into that thing! No! NOOOO!"

There was the sound of a machine being torn apart from not too far away. "Oops," Wheatley said through the walls. He didn't sound too far away. "Oh well. Just another _inferior_ machine. There are plenty more." Nora shut her eyes and started to rock back and forth in Doug's lap.

"Let's move on, Nora," Doug muttered, picking her up by the handles again and carrying her away from the mechanical butcher. He took her to one of his Rat Dens that had a painting of a woman. The women wore a white sleeveless dress and a red and white ascot around her neck. She looked to be about fifty years old and had streaks of gray in her dark hair. But despite her age, she looked beautiful In fact, her age made her look sophisticated. She smirked in the painting as she held an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.

"Who is she?" Nora asked as Doug set her down on a desk in the cramped room.

"Her name is Caroline," Doug said. "She was a big part of this facility when it was first started. She still is a big part of the facility."

"What do you mean? What did she do that was so important?"

Doug sighed. "She was the personal assistant to Cave Johnson, founder and late CEO of Aperture. She helped Johnson build up the company to what it was when _she_ was created. But despite her assistance and loyalty to him, Johnson demanded that she be put into his main computer to control the facility. Her mind was transferred into the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. She is GLaDOS."

Nora stared at the painting a little while longer before saying, "But she looks so kind. Why would Cave Johnson want her put into his computer?"

"He was dying at the time," Doug explained. "He didn't want to die, he wanted to cheat death. The plan was to put his own mind inside the main computer so he would live forever. He requested that if he died before the system was ready he wanted Caroline to be put in it instead. He did die before it was done so the scientists had to put Caroline in the computer. She put up quite a fight. I heard she broke a few ribs before they were finally able to constrain her so they could—well, let's just say they sucked her out of her body."

"How could Mr. Johnson do that to his assistant?" Nora asked.

"He was insane. He combined men with praying mantises. And by the way, you were a human once, too. The scientists used a human as your base and sorted out your personality traits until you seemed innocent enough to make GLaDOS good."

"Wait, I was a person once?" Nora asked. "I was a human like you?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so. Sort of."

"What was I like?"

"I—uh—Well, I didn't actually know the person who was your base. I just sort of know the gist of how it works. That wasn't exactly my department."

"Oh."

"Listen, you're really damaged right now, Nora. How about I go get the tools necessary to fix you?"


	19. Chapter 19: Wheatley Beckons

Doug hurried through the passageways in Aperture. He didn't want to leave Nora alone for too long. He didn't know exactly how damaged she was so he didn't know how long she would last. And she was the best company he had in this godforsaken place since he wasn't imaging her voice like he did the Companion Cube's. He hoped she could last at least another hour so he would have enough time to locate his tools. But as he was estimating how much time it would take him to fix her up, a panel shot out in front of him from his right, missing him by mere inches.

"Hello, Doug," Wheatley said from inside the room that the panel had come from. "I heard what you said earlier. Why don't you come in and we can have a chat?"

Was Doug imagining this? Surely he must have been. He had never been caught by GLaDOS so how had this imbecile found him? And anyway, what was Wheatley talking about when he said he had heard what Doug had said?

He entered the room and the panel obediently returned to its place. The room was large and had no portal-conductive panels whatsoever. There were large tubes running through the room and different gels were being pumped through them. Wheatley hung down from the middle of the room, his cold blue eye fixated on Doug.

"So Nora and I were humans once," Wheatley mused. "Did you know what I was like?"

Doug raised his eyebrows in puzzlement but didn't answer. He was almost certain that he was hallucinating. Why would Wheatley want to talk about this of all things?

"Well, how is Nora?" Wheatley asked. "Is she alright?"

Doug still didn't answer. He didn't want Wheatley to have the satisfaction of knowing that she was suffering because of him.

"Come on, Rattmann. You can talk to me. How is she?"

Doug remained silent.

"Please!" Wheatley cried. "Tell me she's alright! I didn't mean to hit her so hard! I just need to know that she's alive! I'll make you test if you don't answer me! I'll _kill_ you! Answer me now!"

"She's still alive," Doug answered. "She's really damaged. I was on my way to get some tools to fix her."

"But she's alive! Oh, thank god!" Wheatley sighed. "Has she said anything about me?"

"I really don't think you deserve that information," Doug replied coldly.

"I didn't mean to hurt her. You know that, right?"

Doug grunted in reply.

"I want to ask you a question, Doug. I would really appreciate it if you would answer me truthfully." He paused, uncertain of whether or not he wanted to know what Doug would say.

"What?" Doug asked impatiently. "What is it? I really need to get back to Nora."

"If Nora and I were still humans and not in Aperture—just two ordinary humans in society—do you think that she would still love me so much?"

Doug was silent again. He didn't want to make Wheatley happy with what he wanted to hear. How dare he even ask something like that after he was such a jerk to Nora?

"Doug? What's the answer?"

He actually considered the question. Nora was so crazy about Wheatley that Doug felt bad for her. She would probably never get over him. She would always hope that the good Wheatley was still inside that cold, greedy core that had taken over. And if they were both humans, she would still be crazy about him. She would have a crush on him and she would be putty in Wheatley's clueless hands. And Wheatley could see all of this on Doug's face.

"Nora and I would have been happy together," Wheatley said. "We would have been free of this place. We might have met at the facility if we had been rejected as core bases."

"You _did_ meet," Doug blurted out. "You met in a waiting room while you were waiting to be evaluated."

"I met her?" Wheatley asked, dumbfounded. "H-How do you know that?"

"Because I was asked to help examine the possible core bases. I'm….partly responsible for you being here. My friend Henry helped pick out Nora."

"_You_ put me here?" Wheatley asked, squinting his eye at Doug in fury. He moved toward the man until his bright blue eye was only inches from Doug's nose. "You ruined my life! And Nora! That poor girl! She wouldn't be hurt if it wasn't for you scientists!"

"It's _your_ fault!" Doug shouted. "You tried to kill her!"

"WHAT USE IS SHE IF SHE WON'T LOVE ME?!"

Wheatley and Doug glared at each other for a few moments, Doug trying his best not to reveal how terrified he was of Wheatley killing him. He had to get out of there.

"Wheatley, I need to go," Doug said, trying to keep a steady voice. "I don't know how long Nora can last without me fixing her."

Wheatley kept silent as he glared at Doug. He wished his gaze could set Doug on fire. If he wanted, he could hit Doug with a laser and slice him in half. He could lower turrets into the room and have them fill Doug with bullets. But he couldn't deny that he still cared for Nora, and she needed this man to stay alive.

"Get out," Wheatley said. "Go fix Nora. Now."

A panel opened in the room but Doug didn't move. He didn't trust Wheatley. Why would he just let him go?"

"Please! Go save Nora before I decide to slice off your crazy head with lasers!"

Doug hurried out of the room to find his tools. Wheatley was so frustrated about letting Doug go and about being in this cold, mechanical body. He had met Nora when they were both humans. They could have been friends outside of Aperture. They could have gone out on dates and enjoyed the sunlight on their skin and cuddled on rainy days. But instead, Wheatley was alone in this room while Nora was possibly dying somewhere. He tried to place all the blame on Doug, but he knew whose fault it really was. To distract himself from this, he decided to try to put three more legs on a turret to see how well it tested.


	20. Chapter 20: Temptation and Terror

Doug suddenly recognized where he was. An exit to the surface was very close. He had an important task to do but he couldn't help himself. He just had to see the surface one more time, had to breathe in real air and taste freedom once more. He hurried toward the exit, but stopped at the door. The weight of the tools in his lab coat's pockets was like the weight of his conscience on his mind. He had to save Nora before her internal battery ran out or, even worse, before Wheatley found her.

But the surface was merely a door away, just a few inches in front of him.

He opened the door and turned his head up to the sky. Rain poured down on him and he could smell the trees that surrounded the facility. It was amazing. He hadn't felt so free since Chell had shut down GLaDOS. The air was so fresh and clean and perfect. The dark, overcast sky was beautiful. The green vegetation just beyond the chain-link face was lush and gorgeous. And the rain gently patting his skin was so soothing.

"Run," said a voice. "Run away. You're free."

"I can't," Doug said. "Nora needs my help."

"But you're free now. Why do you think you owe her anything?"

Henry suddenly stepped out of the facility and stood next to Doug. Doug turned to look at him. His friend's skin was red, shiny, and raw. Skin was peeling off his balding head. His eyes were very red, too, as if they were extremely dry. He must have survived the neurotoxin so GLaDOS must have tried to incinerate him.

"Henry?" he asked. "Are you really here?"

"Doug, you can leave now," Henry said. "You're out of the facility. You can leave. Just break open the gate and you can go live the rest of your life out there where you can get the medicine you need."

This tipped Doug off that his friend was a hallucination. Doug hadn't told anyone about his condition since it's embarrassing to tell people you hallucinate.

"Henry, you're not real," he said. He didn't know why he felt he had to tell that to the hallucination itself.

Henry suddenly grabbed Doug by the collar, his burned face contorted with rage.

"Doug! You're free!" he yelled. "Why should you go back for that machine? Just leave! You don't owe that construct anything! It's not like it can _feel!"_

Doug just stood still, staring at Henry. Henry's eyes started to turn to dust and his teeth fell out. He shriveled up and Doug felt the illusion's grip loosen as Henry turned to dust. Doug looked toward the forest and saw that the trees seemed to have gotten a lot taller.

"Come to us, Douglas," the trees said in a collective, wispy voice. "Live your life without fear or troubles."

Doug sat down and stared at the wet pavement. If he just looked down, he wouldn't have delusions to see, right? Wrong. Instead of rain, blood now pelted him. It was thick and sticky and painted him scarlet. He closed his eyes, but he knew that was no good. He only saw _her_ staring him down. She was enormous and he felt so helpless in front of her.

"Well, well, well," she said. "I finally have you. No more running away from me, Doug. It's time to comply. For science."

Vents opened around him and neurotoxin seeped out. His body started to convulse and he choked on the gas while his stomach churned sickly. His throat became raw and his muscles ached. And then suddenly, it was all over. His vision went black behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes and he was just gasping for air outside in the rain. He fell over and let himself catch his breath as he just lay there in a puddle. His heart was pounding so fast it almost hurt. He didn't have time to calm down, though. He heaved himself up and went back into the facility.

After five minutes of hurrying back toward Nora, the ground shook and he could hear the facility moving from within. Doug was afraid that Wheatley was moving Nora closer to him, but then Doug realized that the shifting was behind him. The little idiot was making sure that Doug wouldn't be able to get outside again so easily. Doug felt a little regret about not leaving the facility while he still could have, but he needed to get these tools to Nora quickly before Wheatley actually did decide to move Nora closer to him.


	21. Chapter 21: A Tough Decision

Nora must have gone into sleep mode because the next time she opened her eye, she felt a lot better. Well, physically. She still felt terrible emotionally. Doug was sitting in the opposite corner of the room, his head resting against the wall. Was he dead or just sleeping? How long had she been out?

"Doug?" she called. "Are you okay?"

Doug roused from his sleep. When he saw that Nora's eye was open, he smiled.

"Glad to see you're okay," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Nora said. "I was thinking about something while you were gone."

"Oh? What's that?"

"When you said that there's still someone we can save, I realized that there's still hope for that woman. I mean, we can't be certain that she died. She _did_ have on the Long Fall Boots."

"That's true," Doug said, scratching his scruffy beard. "So what do you want to do?"

"I want to go down to where the lady landed so I can try to help her back up here," Nora explained. "Do you think that's possible?"

"Well, hopefully she isn't down as far as I think she might be."

"And how far is that?"

"The Aperture Science Enrichment Center used to be a salt mine, and that goes down really deep. I'm not sure if she'd be able to land safely from _that_ kind of height, even with the Long Fall Boots. But unfortunately, I have no idea how far she did fall, landing safely or not."

Nora looked disappointed. Would she be able to find the lady in time to help her? Who knew where she could have been! Doug saw that Nora was anxious about what to do.

"Nora, I made it to the outside," he said. "I was free for a few minutes."

Nora's pupil shrank in surprise. "Really?" she asked. "How?"

"I found an exit."

"Well, why didn't you leave? You could have saved yourself."

"But I had to save _you."_

Nora was confused by this confession. "Why…Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"Because I want you to know that even though Wheatley—" Nora flinched at the name. "—moved rooms around so that it will be harder to find that exit, we can still find one if we're careful enough."

"But what about the woman?" Nora asked. "We can still save her."

"If we can even _find_ her," Doug said. "It could take a long while until we find her again."

"What's with the change of heart, Doug?" Nora asked.

"I thought about this and decided that it would be safer for both of us if we just tried to find an exit rather than try to save Chell."

"Doug, I think we should help her," Nora insisted. "I'm sure she wants revenge on Wheatley, and I want to help her with that."

Now Doug saw what Nora was getting at. She obviously just wanted revenge on Wheatley, and she wanted to use Chell to get it. Doug supposed that Chell might want revenge, as well, but she probably just wanted to get out of here more.

"Nora, you're not thinking clearly," Doug said gently. "You're letting your anger towards Wheatley guide you."

"I need to help Chell," Nora said, her voice trembling a little. "I need to help her get back up to this level of the facility so she can take her revenge on Wheatley for trying to kill her." As she kept talking, her voice became more passionate.

Doug sighed and stood up. "I can see that there's no changing your mind," he said as he approached the core. "Very well, go down and help her, but I'm afraid I won't be able to go with you."

"What? Why not?" Nora asked, panic rising up inside her as she looked up at Doug from the table.

"I can't move nearly as fast as you, especially if the direction we need to travel is straight down. You'll find her faster if you just travel downward on vertical management rails."

"B-but Doug," Nora said meekly. "I can't do this without you."

"Sure you can," Doug said. He laid a hand on Nora's case and stroked the smooth metal. "You're stronger than you think, Nora. It's amazing that you're still here after getting hit so hard. And you _must_ have helped Wheatley with guiding Chell around the facility when I couldn't so you're also clever. You can do this."


	22. Chapter 22: Corpses

Nora had been coasting down a management rail close to the hole Chell had fallen down for nearly two hours, but she hadn't found the woman yet. She stopped to look around whenever she could but there was still no sign of her. How long could this possibly take? Was she really that far down?

"I wish I had some help for this," Nora muttered to herself as she inspected a cluster of small glass chambers.

"I can help, ma'am," came a voice in a southern accent.

Nora spun around to locate the source of the offer. There were many odd constructs and machines that were deactivated in the glass chambers. Nora had no idea what most of these were but some of them looked like old personality construct designs. One type in particular resembled a perfectly round turret but with more flexible legs. Only one of them had its bright red eye open. Was he awake?

"Um…..hello?" Nora called.

"Howdy." The red eye blinked. "What's a fancy little core like you doin' all the way down here?"

"I-I'm looking for a human," Nora said. "Have you seen her?"

"A human?" the core asked, bewildered. "I haven't seen a human in years! Maybe even decades. But I can help ya if ya want."

"Can you travel on management rails?"

"I think so. I'll need ya to use that metal claw above me to connect me to your management rail there."

Nora approached the control panel in front of the glass chamber. She hooked herself up to the machine and turned it on. It hadn't been turned on in a long time so it was taking awhile to start up.

"Sorry, it'll take a few minutes," Nora apologized after a few minutes.

"No need to apologize," the core said. "Take all the time you need."

"What's your name? I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

"Name's Kurt," the core said.

"I'm Nora."

"Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Nora," Kurt said.

Once the control panel was online, she hacked into it and moved the claw down. She carefully picked up Kurt and slowly moved him up toward the management rail. Kurt's legs thrashed around wildly.

"Whooooa!"

"Are you okay?" Nora asked, alarmed.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Just startled."

"Will you be able to connect yourself to it?" Nora asked.

"I think so. Almost there…"

Kurt opened up a small part of his case in the back of him and he fastened himself to the rail. He let his legs dangle awkwardly.

"Much obliged, miss," Kurt said. "Now, why do you need to find this human?"

"It's a long story," Nora said.

"I've got time," Kurt said.

So Nora explained the situation to Kurt as they descended down the rail for another hour. Kurt apologized to her about how Wheatley had treated her. Kurt was very polite and sympathetic—so different from how Wheatley acted toward strangers. Nora liked this core even if he was a prototype model. He offered to move debris out of the way whenever he could, and complimented her design.

_How sweet of him,_ she thought.

"So what do you do in the facility?" Kurt asked.

"I supervise the Companion Cube Department."

"Those huge cubes with the hearts on 'em? What are those used for anyway?"

"Mostly testing."

"Testing, huh? Sounds neat."

"I never got to take part in anything to do with the actual testing."

"That's still more exciting than laying 'round in the dark forever."

"I guess that's true."

She stopped at another level to look around, but was shocked to find many humans here. All of them were in stasis chambers where their Aperture jumpsuits and hair floated around them. A sign was stuck to every one of the chamber doors. It read: WARNING! DO NOT DISPOSE OF BODIES. BODIES MAY BE USED FOR FUTURE EXPERIMENTATION.

"'Future experimentation'?" Kurt read. "Wuddya suppose that means?"

"I think these might be test subjects," Nora said, studying the humans. "I didn't think they would keep them down this far, though."

She spotted names above the test subjects. The middle-aged man she was looking at now was named Mark Jackson. A young woman next to him was named Donna Jane. She gazed at the test subjects, wondering if there was any way she could save them.

"Wait, this can't be where the test subjects are kept," Kurt said. "I coulda sworn they were kept in a higher level of the facility."

"Well, Wheatley has been moving things around," Nora pointed out.

"But he still shouldn't be able to reach down this far."

Then Nora saw that Kurt was right. These couldn't be test subjects. Nora slowly approached the human at the end of the row she was at and stopped to stare at the ill-looking man. His hair was almost all gone and he looked so feeble. His stasis chamber was made of gold and a gold plague was mounted to the top of the chamber. It said: CAVE JOHNSON, FOUNDER OF APERTURE SCIENCE, 1943 – 1988. They obviously couldn't use a dead person for testing.

Kurt whizzed over to Nora and realized that she was looking at Cave Johnson.

"Kurt, where are we?" Nora asked. "Are these all just corpses?"

"No, some of them are alive," Kurt said. "Look, some of these chambers have oxygen being pumped into them."

Nora decided to look down the next row. Indeed, some of them _did_ have oxygen to keep the humans alive, but some of them just had corpses floating in them. She stopped at one that had her name. Nora Williams. Williams? Was….Was that her last name? The human had a soft, pallid face with soft features and very light freckles. Her hair was pale blonde and it waved around her shoulders and neck. She looked as though she was sleeping but she wasn't. It was more like a coma. Nora recognized this face as her own, and a feeling of longing overwhelmed her. Somehow, though, that feeling grew and seemed to choke her when she saw the man named Wheatley Burns just a few people away. There was a sign for this section of chambers that categorized them as EMPTY SHELLS.


	23. Chapter 23: Long Ago

Wheatley Burns had striking red hair and was very tall. His nose was long and sharp and had many freckles on it. He needed glasses for his green eyes. And he always dressed sharply in case he ran into someone important. Like his future employer or the Prime Minister. But now he was in America for more opportunities and, of course, their silly accents. He had tried to master the "southern accent" of America, but he only offended people with it—which was why he had been kicked out of Black Mesa before he had even had a chance to apply for a job. He wanted to try out for a job as a secretary or a test subject because it sounded easy, but Black Mesa just hadn't seemed to have any use for him. He didn't need them, anyway.

Aperture Science wasn't offended by his impressions, though. They laughed and found him hilarious. So he had agreed to participate in their artificial intelligence experiment. It was suppose to pay well so why not? The waiting room he had to wait in was large enough to fit close to fifty people as long as they were all sitting in the chairs. The magazines and brochures that were stocked in the room were all about science and owning businesses. Wheatley didn't want to read such boring stuff.

"Hello," he said to the portly man next to him. "What's the number you have?"

"57," the man grumbled and sniffed dryly. He looked like the kind of person that would own a fast food franchise.

Wheatley looked down at his own number—32—and looked up at the number they were serving. 28. So close. He looked around the room and spotted a scientist slipping into the waiting room from the corridor. He had jet black hair and odd blue eyes where one of the pupils was dilated. You could clearly see that he hadn't shaved that morning by the stubble on his chin. He took an orange bottle of pills out of his pocket and popped one into his mouth before washing it down with a bottle of water. Wheatley realized how thirsty he was now so he stood from his chair and approached the man.

"Excuse me," Wheatley said, speaking over the low din in the room. "Could I have a drink from your water?"

The man looked at Wheatley in surprise—as if he hadn't known the ginger-haired man could speak. His warm blue eyes were sad as he stared at Wheatley. He hadn't wanted to speak to any of the "volunteers" while they were in the waiting room. He had decided not to get close to any of the subjects in case they were chosen for the experiment.

"Um, yeah," he said. "Here you go."

He held out the bottle for Wheatley to take and Wheatley gratefully took two chugs of the water. He sighed and looked at the scientist's nametag. "Thanks, Doug," he said, handing the bottle back. "Are you part of this experiment or just passing through?"

"Yeah, I'll be questioning the subjects—I mean, the volunteers," Doug quickly corrected. "Whatever."

Suddenly, a girl came through the door behind Doug. She was small and pale with soft features. Her light blonde hair bounced as she walked. She looked around the room with timid dark eyes. She turned to the scientist in front of her and asked, "Is this where you go for the artificial intelligence thing?" she was so quiet that Doug almost hadn't heard her, but he nodded.

"Yes," Doug said. "You were given a number in the mail, right?"

"Yeah, I have a question about that," Wheatley interrupted. "Why couldn't we have just gotten numbers here?"

Doug sighed. "I have no idea," he said. "This place is crazy."

"I see," Wheatley said. He turned to the girl. "Oh, I'm Wheatley, by the way. Wheatley Burns."

"I'm Nora Williams," the girl said.

"Are you even old enough for this?" Wheatley asked without thinking.

Nora looked down shyly. "I'm twenty-three," she said quietly.

"Oh!" Wheatley said. "I'm sorry! That was rude of me! I mean, that has to be a little insulting, I suppose. You're only four years younger than I am."

Nora just shrugged a little.

"Why don't you two go sit down?" Doug suggested. "I need to do some paperwork for this mess."

Wheatley took Nora's hand in his. Her hand was so warm and soft in his large clumsy hand. "Come on, Nora," Wheatley said. "You can sit next to me."

He led her to his seat and she sat in the chair to his left.

"So what brought you here?" Wheatley asked. "I was offered this opportunity when I was applying for a job here."

"I was offered a spot in the experiment by a scientist at a bus stop near my house," Nora said. "I accidentally pumped into him and spilled his coffee all over his suit. I nearly cried as I apologized to him over and over." Nora laughed a little and Wheatley smiled.

"Hey, maybe we can go get a late lunch or something when we're done here," Wheatley offered.

Nora looked down to hide her blushing face. "Um, okay," Nora said. "If you want to wait for me. I'm number 45."

"I can wait," Wheatley said. "I promise I will."

Doug wished he could smile at this cute scene, but he was afraid they might be chosen. He went into one of the examination rooms.


	24. Chapter 24: Wish Me Luck

Wheatley's number was finally called. He went into the examination room and did a terrible impression of a New York accent to break the ice. All the scientists pretended to be amused except for Doug. He just frowned, picked up his clipboard, and encouraged the others to start the testing. They gave Wheatley scenarios in which something went wrong with the human testing or a robot goes crazy, then they asked what he would do. His answers were terrible. He thought he could talk a robot out of killing people by reciting a poem that he got completely wrong. He also thought that he could easily hack into a computer system if a rogue AI tried to poison everyone when he didn't have much experience with a computer at all.

He was perfect. He was exactly what they were looking for.

They congratulated him for passing the examination with flying colors and told him that he would be paid at the end of the experiment. They led him through a door in the back of the room.

"Wait," Wheatley said. "I told someone that I would meet them back in the waiting room when I was done."

"Oh, don't worry," said one of the scientists who wore a nametag that said Jon on it. "You'll be able to meet them in a while. We just need to run a few more tests."

Doug watched Wheatley walk through the door as he stayed behind in the cold examination room. Wheatley looked back and they met eyes before the door shut behind him. In that brief moment, Wheatley saw despair and fear in his eyes. Something was wrong about this examination.

Doug went back out to the examination room and sat next to the girl named Nora.

"Where did that man go?" Nora asked. "Wheatley said he would wait for me."

"They chose him for more testing," Doug said, trying to be friendly. "Don't worry about him."

"What will I have to do in the examination room?" she asked nervously.

"You'll just have to answer some question and such."

Nora looked down at the floor. She was obviously anxious about doing this.

"Why are you really here?" Doug asked. "You could have declined the offer that the scientist made you."

"I don't like turning down an offer," Nora said quietly. "I don't want to be rude."

Doug felt really bad for her, and hoped with all his heart that she wouldn't be chosen.

"Number 45!" Henry said, poking his head out of one of the examination rooms.

"Well, that's me," Nora said, standing up. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Doug said with a halfhearted smile. As she disappeared into the examination room with Henry, he almost considered praying that she wouldn't be chosen, but he knew that would have done no good.


	25. Chapter 25: One-Sided Conversation

Wheatley spent a lot of time with the Companion Cubes. He brought some to his lair and tried to talk to them, but they refused to respond. It was like they knew what he had done. But he talked to them anyway because they wouldn't insult him or tell him he's wrong.

"You know I didn't mean to hurt her, right?" he asked them. No response. "I just didn't like being rejected. I know you guys were fond of her and so was I. I tried so hard to make her happy. I made her a queen, for god's sake!" He sighed. "What was I thinking? She didn't want to be a queen. She was too modest for that. Maybe she was right about me becoming a jerk. Why did I _hurt_ her like that? Well, I guess now we know what she was wrong about. I knew I wouldn't be able to run this place. I shouldn't be trusted with so much responsibility. I shouldn't be trusted with _any_ amount of responsibility. The intercom keeps telling me about some kind of meltdown, but I haven't a bloody clue what it's talking about. Do you?" No response.

Wheatley turned away from the Companion Cubes and sighed again. "What if she's _dead_ now? I'll probably never see her again. I'll never chase her around the facility again. I'll never hear her tell me that she loves me. I barely got to hear it before. If I had her again, I would try to find a core to replace me in this body so I could show how that I don't need it."

The Cubes continued to ignore him.

"I keep moving the rooms around to find her, but the more I move stuff around the more rubbish I hear about that meltdown. All I want is my best friend back, but should I just give up on her?"

No response.

"Maybe I should just keep looking. I might find her soon. I might find her and plead for her forgiveness. It's only a matter of time before I come across her. Or at least that Rattmann. I'll squeeze her location out of him."

Wheatley paused, staring at the floor intently at the floor. "I also miss that lady. She was my friend, too. She tried to help me out. She was risking her life for both of us to have freedom, and I just flushed all of that down the toilet. Why did I do that? She was a lovely lady. She never defied me before. Never argued, never insulted me, never tried to hurt me. She would smile at me and look at me with those bright, kind eyes."

Suddenly, he got angry. "But she never caught me when I fell off my management rail. She just stepped back to protect _herself_. And when she plugged me into the mainframe, I was put through agony before gaining control of the facility. I bet she meant to." Then he softened again. "I still miss her, though. And I need someone to test for me. No matter what I do to the turrets, they're just too light to activate the buttons." He turned back to the Companion Cubes. "But I was thinking that maybe you guys could test for me. I could put legs on you and you would just have to walk onto the buttons. What do you think?"

The Companion Cubes protested and demanded that he leave. Wheatley was startled by this and left before they started revolting. He went to the Weighted Storage Cubes who weren't as bright and they welcomed him. He explained his idea to them and they seemed very willing to become a bigger part of testing. So he ripped the legs off of a turret and stuck them onto a Cube. The Cubes were too dim to figure out how to solve the tests, though, and when Wheatley told them how.


	26. Chapter 26: Back In Time

Nora and Kurt had gone pretty far down into the facility. Nora was convinced that they were lost and was giving up hope when Kurt asked if they could stop for a bit.

"I just need to stretch my legs," he said. "They're gettin' stiff."

"Sure, go ahead," Nora said.

Kurt detached himself from the management rail and dropped down to the floor. He cried out as he fell flat on his face. Nora gasped.

"I'm fine!" Kurt said. "Just been awhile since I used my legs to stand on."

Suddenly, a booming voice came up from under them. Then the floor beneath Kurt's spindly legs shook as something heavy fell to the ground on the level below them.

"Welcome, gentlemen," said the booming voice, "to Aperture Science. Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians: you're here because we want the best and you are it. So, who is ready to make some science?"

"I am!" said a woman's voice. She sounded young, pretty, and lively. The first voice introduced himself as Cave Johnson and presented the young woman as Caroline.

"Caroline?" Nora mused.

"It's just a prerecorded message," Kurt said, looking up at Nora. "Caroline has passed away by now. I remember her before what they did to her."

"You do?"

"Oh, yeah. She wasn't quite so pretty in her later years but she was a sweetheart. She was even kind to the cores."

"She sounds lovely."

"I wonder why that recording is going off," Kurt said. "The power down here hasn't been on for decades."

"How do you know so much about these sorts of things?" Nora asked.

"I was programmed to instruct humans on how parts of the facility work. I kinda learned about the older bits as a hobby. I'm sort of a history buff."

"Oh. Wait, then who turned on the power? Wheatley?"

"No way! I don't think there's any way he could reach all the way down here. And why would he want the power on down _here_ anyway?"

"Then who…." It took Nora a second to realize who it was. "The lady! It must be her! I'm surprised she made it all the way down here!"

"I hope that little lady has an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device," Kurt said. "She'll need it if she plans to go through the testing."

"Testing?"

"Yeah, judging by the prerecorded message, it sounds like she's in the lobby for the astro-nauts and ath-a-letes and such."

"I hope she was able to hold onto it," Nora said quietly. "She had it when she fell down the hole."

"Did she have on her Long Fall Boots?"

Nora nodded.

"Oh, she'll do dandy!" Kurt declared confidently.

"She's very smart, anyway," Nora chimed in. "Would you like to lead the way to the testing area?"

"Ma'am, I would be honored."

Kurt scuttled along the floor ahead and Nora followed. Kurt led her around for a long time until her finally stopped at a testing sphere and said, "I don't exactly know how to get into one of these."

"What do you mean?" Nora asked, concerned.

"Well, they're not really designed for a core to get inside. Cores were only a concept at the time so they never designed a way for a core to enter the spheres."

"Well, what do we do?" Nora asked.

"All we can do for now is follow Cave Johnson's voice. There are a lot of chambers, though, so we could be following her on the outside for quite a while."

This troubled Nora. What if the lady needed help? "Is there really nothing else we can do?"

"Nothing I can think of at hand, Miss," Kurt said apologetically.


	27. Chapter 27: She's Not Real, Doug

Doug was gone right now. He was too out of his mind to even be aware of his surroundings. All he knew was that he was somewhere small and he was feeling cramped. He had enough room to pull his knees up to his chest and mumble into his lap. His mouth was moving so fast that he feared a little that it had a mind of its own and that he no longer controlled it. He was glad that Nora wasn't around to see this side of him.

_Why did she have to leave?!_ Doug thought. _I need someone to talk to so that I'm not like this!_

"_It's okay, Doug,"_ his Companion Cube said. _"You can talk to me."_

_I want Nora!_ Doug thought. _She was so sweet and kind. What if she breaks down there?_

His mouth suddenly began to move faster with panic.

_No! If she breaks, I will have no one here! What if I can't find my way out?! I need that angel!_

Then he began to think that maybe there was a God and that Nora was an angel sent to him to keep him sane. _What if Aperture is really Hell?_ he thought. _What if GLaDOS was the Devil and Wheatley was an angel that became corrupt after defeating her? What would that make Chell? She and I would just be mortals that were condemned to Hell. She's much better at keeping her head than I am. Well, that's because you're a freak, Doug. A freak who loses his mind sometimes for no reason. You have bad chemicals in your head. You must have done something wrong to deserve this._

"_You don't deserve this, Doug,"_ the Companion Cube said sadly. _"Please don't say that. Nora will come back and save us. Everything will be fine."_

"You don't know anything!" Doug yelled, turning to glare at the Cube. "You're not even real!"

"_Well, how do you know that _she_ was real?"_ the Cube demanded, getting agitated. _"Huh? She could have been in your head like I am!"_

"But….But Wheatley spoke to her."

"_You mean when Wheatley was running around with you and Nora behind the walls? What makes you think he wasn't a hallucination, as well? You could have just imagined both of them with you and you could have just been talking to yourself the whole time."_

_Oh god!_ Doug thought, terrified. _That can't be true! Nora! That angel! She has to be real! I can't be that far gone! I fixed her! I could feel her case!_

"_Just a hallucination, Doug."_

"Shut up!" Doug screamed. He pressed his palms tightly against his ears. "Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up!"

"_That's no good, Doug. You can still hear me."_

Doug started to sob into his lap. If he was this far gone—if he was having such clear, lucid hallucinations—then he had no hope. He might as well just end everything. There had to be turrets close by that he could find. Would he have the courage to run out in front of them, though?

"_Doug, please stop,"_ the Cube said solemnly. _"Look, I'm sorry. She could be real. Don't kill yourself. I was just saying those things because you said I wasn't real. Please calm down and stop crying."_

Doug looked up at the Cube and wiped his eyes. "I-I'm sorry I s-said you're not real," he stammered. "I'm just really upset right now. I feel so bad for Nora. This is entirely my fault."

"_No, it's not. It's Aperture's fault. If I could hug you right now I would, but I'm afraid I don't have arms."_

He couldn't help but smile at this.

"_There you go!" _the Cube encouraged. _"That's much better! She's gonna be okay. She's a tough kid."_


	28. Chapter 28: Freund

**AUTHOR****'S NOTE: I know I haven't been posting a lot. I sincerely apologize for this. I don't like putting in these author's notes so I'll try to be brief. I don't like to post unless I have written a few chapters in advance so I can post two or three chapters in one day. If I'm not posting for a few weeks, I'm probably working on the story. I only want to post the best I can do. I've been getting some really positive reviews and I can't tell you how happy I am to post new chapters for you guys. Thank you so much. :)  
**

Nora and Kurt followed the management rail for what felt like an hour. Who knows how long it had actually been. Nora wasn't keeping track on her internal clock. Eventually, though, Kurt stopped, turned around, and said, "I think we're lost."

Nora looked down in despair.

"I'm so sorry, darlin'," Kurt said.

"It's okay," Nora murmured. "Really. If we can find a vertical rail, you could attach yourself and we could find Doug."

"That sounds like the best plan at the moment," Kurt agreed.

He scuttled along the floor a little further until it quickly turned into a catwalk. They came to a large opening that exposed of what used to be part of the salt mines. Nora couldn't tell what that liquid was below them but it didn't smell pleasant at all. There were rooms across the way from them. There were chairs and desks in the offices with large, bulky machines against the walls. In one of the rooms Nora spotted a figure looking out of one of the wide windows. It was in the room that hung above all the others.

"Kurt, look!" she said.

Kurt was too preoccupied with looking over the end of the catwalk. His spindly legs shook a little as he gazed down at the floor a mile down.

"Kurt?"

He looked up at Nora apologetically. "Sorry, Miss," he said. "I've got a fear of heights." He looked back down. "Especially when I'm not supported by the management rail."

"Kurt," Nora said. She hesitated, not wanting to give him bad news. "I think I see a person over there in one of those rooms. We should go check it out."

"Pardon me, Miss, but how do you expect me to get all the way over _there?_ I know we're different models but my model ain't designed for flying."

Nora studied the catwalk that ended so abruptly. There were no catwalks nearby for Kurt to jump down to. The rooms were an irritating distance away for this dilemma. She could barely see the other rooms from where she hung. Part of the rocky wall jutted out and almost hid the rooms from view. Her gaze drifted back down toward her trembling friend. He actually wasn't that far down from her. He was three, maybe three and a half feet below her.

"Do you think you could jump up to me?" she finally asked.

Kurt looked up at her as if she were crazy. "You're not suggestin' that I hold onto you as you slide down there, are you?"

"It's the only idea I can think of right now," Nora said apologetically.

"But what if I fall?!" Kurt asked, trembling more. "I would break! I would shatter into pieces from this height!"

"You don't have to do this," Nora said. "We can think of something else, if you want."

Kurt looked around the room slowly and sighed. "No, you're right," he admitted. "This is the best plan we got."

"I'm sorry," Nora said.

"Nah, it's fine," Kurt said. He reached up with one leg and set it against one of the rails. Then he threw his back leg out to touch the other rail. He carefully balanced on his right leg. "Get ready for me to latch on."

Nora got closer and offered him her bottom handle. Kurt jumped at her and hooked his right leg around her handle. Just to be safe, he swung his other leg over to grab her handle, as well.

"Hang on tightly," Nora said. She started to slowly glide toward the rooms. It was a long drop and Kurt shook the entire time. The figure in the window didn't move. It didn't seem to notice the bots coming toward it, but Nora could definitely tell that it was a human.

A new problem arose when they actually got to the rooms. They were still high above the rooms and there didn't seem to be any way to get into the room that the human was in. There was a vertical rail that led down through the rock behind the room, but there were no panels that a bot could move to get in. They hung right outside the room, just on the wrong side of the wall.

"Well, now what?" Kurt asked, disappointed.

"We _need_ to get into there," Nora said. She was too determined. What if it was the lady and she was lost? "Kurt, can you try to connect yourself to the rail now?"

Kurt opened up the back of his case and was able to connect himself to the management rail below her.

"Move away a little," Nora said. "I'm about to do a very Wheatley thing."

Kurt moved down a little. Nora took a deep breath, braced herself, and slammed herself against the wall. It did little damage, but she could feel that it was worn and brittle. Something stirred in the room. She smacked herself into the wall again, this time using her handles. He smacked into the wall a few more times, feeling it begin to crack, until she suddenly heard Cave Johnson's booming voice again over the speakers. This time he was welcoming homeless people into the facility that would be testing for $60 each. Nora could hear the human scurry into what sounded like a niche in the wall.

"What's going on?" Kurt asked.

"I don't know," Nora said. "But I think someone has activated the lift."

"Was it the human in there?"

"No, the human is hiding in the room."

"Someone is definitely on the lift. You sure the human is still in there?"

"Yeah," Nora murmured. "It must be the lady who's in the lift."

She smashed herself into the wall again until it cracked and she could see out of a small hole. She worked at the hole with her handle to make the hole wider. She could now look into the room and see the human that stared at her cautiously from a sliding door to her immediate right. It was a young man who couldn't have been older than eighteen. He wasn't particularly strong and he didn't look very clever. He had piercing blue eyes that made Nora think of a blizzard. His dark hair was wavy and ended around his jawline. That jaw was squared maturely and he had whiskers, but he didn't look capable of growing a beard. And although his jaw was mature, the rest of his face was still boyishly round. He wore an Aperture Science testing jumpsuit and Long Fall Boots.

"Um, hello," Nora said.

The boy's eyes widened with fear. He started to back away with fear.

"Wait!" Nora pleaded. "Hold on! I won't hurt you!"

"Was?"

"Did he say 'Vahss'?" Kurt asked.

"No, he was asking 'what,'" Nora explained to him. "It's German. I don't know much of the language, though." She turned back to the test subject. "Hello. Um….uh….E-English?"

"English?"

"Yes. Can you speak English?"

The boy looked daze but he nodded. "Yah," he said. "I am sorry. It has been long time…" He looked down and rubbed his eye.

"How did you get here?" Nora asked.

"Whit-ley…"

"Wheatley?"

"Yah. Wheatley."

"Did he make you test?"

The boy nodded.

"I can't believe this!" Nora said. "He's using humans to test!"

"He try to burn me," the boy went on. "He had get mad that I do not speak very good English. I could not understand very good. I escape, though, und jump down hole. I hope to land safe und I did."

"What's your name?" Nora asked. "My name is Nora."

"My name ist Charlie," he answered.

"Charlie, can you help us?" Nora asked. "Did you see a woman come through here?"

"Woman," Charlie repeated, looking toward the lift. "Yah. Beautiful woman. With potato on Portal Gun."

"That's her!" Nora said. "And it sounds like she has GLaDOS now."

"Who?" Charlie asked.

"Our only hope of defeating Wheatley," Nora said. "Do you want to come with us?"

Charlie looked confused. He obviously had no idea what Nora was talking about, but he nodded at the last part.

"Do you still have your Portal Gun?" Nora asked.

He shook his head. "It burns."

"Oh. That's a shame. Well, you'll have to hold onto me to get around in the facility."

"I'm way sturdier!" Kurt said, moving up on the rail to look out of the hole. "I'll grab onto you with my legs and carry you around."

Charlie looked startled by Kurt's sudden appearance.

"Howdy. My name is Kurt."

"Howdy?" Charlie echoed.

"Kurt, you need to use simpler sentences," Nora said. "Would you like Kurt to carry you? He is strong."

Charlie nodded so Kurt stuck his three legs out of the hole. Now Charlie looked unsure.

"Don't be shy, Charlie," Kurt said. "It's safe."

"Safe.." The boy slowly approached Kurt.

"Turn around," Kurt said. Charlie obeyed and Kurt wrapped his lanky legs around the boy's waist. Charlie panicked and tried to pull away. "No! Safe! Charlie, boy, don't you worry. I am a friend."

"Freund?" Charlie said in German. "Du ist Freund?"

"What?"

"Yes!" Nora said, excited that she understood that. "We are your friends. Um, Freuden. Friends."

"Freunden." Charlie smiled for the first time, showing off his perfectly straight teeth.


	29. Chapter 29: The Lady

It was nice to have Charlie walking around with them. He had been so scared when they took the vertical rail away from the room that he had curled up into a ball and just shook on the ground when they had reached a catwalk. But now he was recovered and listened as Nora tried to explain what had happened. He didn't understand much, but he understood that Wheatley had betrayed Nora and Nora was a very nice person. Charlie wanted to help Nora in any way he could.

"Vill I see the beautiful lady again?" he asked Nora.

"Yes," Nora said. "We're going to try to help her."

Charlie smiled and blushed. "Do you think she vill be happy for my help?"

"Of course!" Nora said, smiling back internally. "She might even give you a kiss."

His face went red and he laughed nervously. "Does she have a name?"

"Her name is Chell."

"Shell…"

They traveled behind the walls and through offices. Nora felt déjà vu as she hurried along the management rail with a male bot and a male human. It also made her miss them a great deal. She still longed for her old Wheatley. And Doug….Was he okay? Was he still alive? Had Wheatley found him? What if Wheatley was making him test? She had to get back up to see if the man was safe.

"So Charlie," Kurt said. "How did you come to be in Aperture?"

"Mein mütter bring me here for work," he said. "Bring your daughter to work."

"You must be mistaken," Kurt said. "Daughters are girls. You mean son."

Charlie shook his head and he blushed. "Mütter wanted a girl. She insist on bringing me. They don't let me do project with potatoes because I am boy."

"I'm sorry, Charlie," Kurt said.

"At least you _survived_ that day," Nora murmured.

"What do you mean by that?" Kurt asked.

"It's sort of taboo," Nora said. She looked at Charlie who hung his head. Kurt looked over, too, and quickly caught on. Charlie looked like he might start crying so the conversation stopped here.

Nora tried to think about the lady without thinking about Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. She sort of missed watching her solve tests. She missed seeing the studious look on the lady's face as she examined the tests. It was a shame that she was in those spheres where they couldn't see her. How was she doing?

She still refused to speak to anyone. Even when she had been by herself she had kept quiet. And anyway, the potato GLaDOS might short-circuit from surprise if she spoke now. That was its name, right? She remembered seeing it written somewhere just before reaching her chamber the first time. She still didn't like to think of that. She had been hanging from the ceiling so ominously and didn't even look at her. The computer had barely had any personality until its morality was destroyed. She still got goose bumps when she thought of that cackle that the machine had let out once it had no conscience. And that voice…When GLaDOS had started using _that voice_…..she knew she had been in serious trouble. She hadn't wanted to kill the _curious_ little core. Honestly, she just wanted out. She wanted to go home. But now? Now she just wanted to get as far away from this place as possible. She didn't even care where.

"Did anything happen while I was out?" GLaDOS asked as Chell stepped out of the lift.

_You mean besides the lift ride? _Chell thought sarcastically. She headed toward the test and looked at her surroundings. A ramp, a large button, and a tube that spit out propulsion gel were the first things she noticed. She didn't like the propulsion gel very much. Cave Johnson started talking through the speakers again. GLaDOS seemed confused by the voice. Chell couldn't imagine why. She thought that GLaDOS ought to know about the founder of the facility. Cave asked his assistant Caroline about compensation vouchers. Just as Caroline said, "Yes sir, Mr. Johnson," GLaDOS said it, too—almost as a reflex. Then the little bot panicked. She was confused, maybe even scared. Then she short-circuited and was silenced. Chell had never seen GLaDOS act this way before. And then it dawned on her. What if GLaDOS was...

_No way, _Chell thought. _Caroline seemed so nice. There's no way._

First she wanted to see what the big button did. After seeing that it raise the ramp, she splattered the propulsion gel along the ramp and ran on it. She hated the feeling she got when it threw her forward. She was always afraid that she wouldn't stop in time and might crash through a wall—or worse, fly over the edge. She was getting tired of the testing. She tried to think of home as she brought the old Weighted Storage Cube over to the button, but she couldn't remember her home. And the memory of her adopted parents had almost faded away completely. What did they look like? Were they even still alive? Did her home even exist? She didn't care at this point. She just wanted out.

She might have hated the gel but it gave her a flashback to the mural of herself that someone had painted in the facility. Some people would have been creeped out by it, but she knew who had done it. It was whoever had guided her before. The person who had drawn X's over the turrets so she knew where to shoot the portals; the person who had drawn arrows to show her how to escape. It was her guardian angel. She wanted to meet this person and thank them for everything they had done

_If the person is even still alive,_ she thought sadly as she headed toward the next test.

But wait. What was this? As GLaDOS freaked out a little more, Chell noticed that the catwalk had stairs that seemed to lead up to some room. The stairs were blocked off, but she could see a portal-conductive wall at the top of the stairs. And just before her was another such wall. So she portal-ed her way up the stairs and entered an old observation room. Hanging on the wall was a portrait of a man and a woman. Chell recognized the man as Cave Johnson. The woman, though, was a stranger. Yet, didn't she look familiar to Chell? GLaDOS seemed to recognize them, too, but couldn't call exactly who they were.

_Is this Caroline?_ Chell asked. The woman looked old but strong, confident. Her age didn't seem to get her down at all. Chell liked the woman's face and the familiarity that came with it.


	30. Chapter 30: Annie the Angel

Doug could have sworn that she was real. She comforted him when his thoughts were haunting him. Back in his old life, he would just see her smile at him in public or at work when he was having a rough day. It took him a while to realize that she was only in his head. He found out one day when he had tried to speak to her. He had asked her what her name was, and she had looked away with embarrassment while everyone else at the bus stop had glared at him. He had been talking to himself, but the hallucination had glanced at him apologetically. _That's the last time I try to talk to any woman,_ Doug had thought.

She never spoke to him, but she never needed to because her presence alone was calming. Eventually, she had started to follow him home and would watch him as he worked. He would look up at her and she would give him a comforting smile. He would smile back shyly and get back to his work. She had always made him shy back in those days even if she wasn't real. A pretty woman is a pretty woman, and he was lucky that such a woman in his mind would want to be around him. The people in his mind usually spoke of getting him fired or convincing him to kill himself.

His life as a survivor in Aperture demanded her company a lot more often. He needed something to cling to that would make him feel good again. This was a woman he had grown to love. He had named her Annie and she seemed to like the name. He would start to cuddle with his heavy bed sheet, and it would soon turn into her. He would be able to feel her dark, thick curls against his face. He would be able to run his hand down her curvy body. She had what he liked to call "baby fat"—because it sounded a lot cuter than saying she was "plump"—and he liked this about her. Sometimes she would roll over to face him and he could look into her dark eyes just above her rosy cheeks. Her cheeks were always pink and had tiny craters that he would caress with his thumb as he held her face in his hand. She would seem self-conscious about her cheeks, but he loved them. He would often cry as he held her because he knew she wasn't real. She would never be real. No matter how hard he held onto her, she would always fade away.

He held her right now. She was so soft in his arms and he couldn't believe that she was a figment of his imagination. He tried to keep back his tears because they always made her sad. But she knew that he was upset again. Annie always knew. She stroked the side of his face with her small hand. Doug had always loved her hands. Her nails weren't very long like the female coworkers that he had used to put up with. She always wore a white blouse with a blue cardigan over it and a loose black jeans. She was barefoot now but she used to wear a pair of green sneakers. Everything about her was casual and reassuring. She reminded him so much of his simple life before he had become this rat living in a giant cage.

"Please don't go this time," Doug whispered. "I can't stand being so alone. I need you for when the voices come back."

She would never say anything out loud to him, but he just knew her responses by looking at her. She told him that she couldn't help it. She would stay if she could and he knew that.

"I…I need to find that little construct, Nora," Doug murmured. "You would like her. She's such a sweet little girl. She could be something like a daughter to us."

Annie smiled sadly. She was saying that she was sure she would love to meet Nora. Doug had been thinking about Nora a lot so Annie knew all about her.

"If only Aperture had started working on androids before this mess. Then I could get Nora into a body and we could both escape this place more easily. I hope she gives up and comes back soon."

Doug suddenly heard the voices echoing out from the cracks in the wall. They whispered cruel things about how he was a freak and that he was going to die. Other voices started to call out weakly. They sounded like the souls of the damned. Doug held onto Annie tighter, but he could feel her slipping out of his grasp.

"No," Doug whispered desperately. "No. Please, Annie. Not now. No!" His voice rose to a cry as she started to fade away. The tears started to break free from his eyes. "Annie, please stay! I really need you right now, Annie!"

Annie looked at him sadly. She didn't want to leave him. She wished she could help him. She loved him. And then she was gone. The room started to sway around Doug as he got to his feet.

"_He's going to kill you, Douglas!"_ one of the voice laughed. _"Wheatley is going to kill you before you get to hold your little girlfriend again!"_

"_And if he doesn't—"_ another voice began.

"_We will."_ This last voice was that of a turret. _"I see you, Doug."_


	31. Chapter 31: Mutual Friendship

Doug was scurrying through the air ducts, trying to get away from the voices. Some of them were crying for his help while others mocked him.

"_Just kill yourself, Doug!"_ they called. _"It's your only escape!"_

He was so desperate to get away from the demons that he was all instinct. He was just a wild animal that was crawling through tubes. The walls of the ducts were pulsing around him as if they were the veins of Aperture and he was just an intruder in its bloodstream. Ahead of him he could see a grill that he knew exited out into a small office. He hurried toward the grill and forced it open. Then he somersaulted out and landed on his feet.

"Doug?"

Shit. He wasn't in the small office after all. He looked up and saw Wheatley looking down at him from the ceiling. Doug ran toward a hole in the wall, but Wheatley covered all the gaps in his lair.

"You look so pathetic down there, Doug!" Wheatley laughed cruelly. "You're like a rabid beast!"

Doug ran around the room like the rat he was, searching frantically for a way of escape. Then he collapsed onto the ground and started muttering to himself. Wheatley couldn't catch anything that Doug was saying, but he thought he caught the name Annie buried in all of the nonsense coming out of his mouth. Seeing him like this reminded him of how Doug was when he had first seen him with Nora.

"Wh-What's that, mate?" Wheatley said mockingly, but his voice faltered. "You need to speak real words for me to understand you!"

Doug's muttering suddenly turned into sobs. He curled up and cried.

"D-Doug?" Wheatley asked. "Doug, what's wrong? Are you okay? Is Nora alright?"

Doug continued to cry.

"Don't you _dare_ tell me she's dead!" Wheatley said. "I swear if you tell me she's dead, I'll—"

"Sh-She's gone!" Doug cried out.

"Nora? _Where_ has she gone?!"

"A-Annie!"

"Who the bloody hell is Annie?!"

Doug couldn't answer. His eyes were squeezed shut as he kept crying, shaking hard with each sob. Wheatley realized that he wasn't going to get any more answers out of the man, but he couldn't bring himself to kick him out. He was actually surprised to find a soft spot in his circuits for this human. He sighed and moved closer to Doug. "I'm not going to kill you, Doug," he said. "I promise I won't."

It took a few hours for Doug to recover. Wheatley was kind enough to stay by Doug's side and say comforting things to him. "I won't kill you. It'll be okay, buddy." In his deranged state of mind, Doug was able to catch endearing words like "buddy" or "mate." He would start laughing at this, but then he would think that it's all a trick and he would start crying with fear again.

Once his hallucinations had died down enough for him to think more clearly, Doug become fully aware of his surroundings. He grew embarrassed that Wheatley had seen him crying.

"Why…..Why didn't you kill me?" he asked, sitting up.

"Well, Nora likes you and I knew she'd be upset if I killed you," Wheatley said. "Is she alright? Were you able to fix her?"

"Yeah, I fixed her," Doug said. He wiped his eyes with his grubby sleeve.

"Oh, excellent!" Wheatley said. "I owe you, mate. I really do. In exchange for helping Nora, I won't intentionally kill you!"

"Great," Doug said flatly. _Although it would be nicer if you just let me and Chell leave this place._

"So where is she now?" Wheatley asked.

"Why should I tell you?" Doug asked. "You really hurt that girl."

"You have to tell me, Doug!" Wheatley cried. "I've told you I didn't _mean_ to hurt her!"

"I still don't trust you."

"I could've _killed_ you! I could've killed you while you were absolutely loony!"

"But you didn't because of Nora."

"Where is she?! I said I wouldn't kill you, but I can still _mutilate_ you!"

"She left me, alright?" Doug said. "She wanted to go find that woman that you sent down that elevator shaft."

"She's running around somewhere here by herself? What if she gets lost? What if she gets hurt? Why did you let her go off on her own?!"

Doug laughed. "Do you know how deep in the ground that poor, young woman could be? Do you even know how far done the elevator shafts go?"

"Well, judging by your tone, I'm guessing I don't," Wheatley said.

"Who knows where she is!" Doug laughed. "I sure don't! I can't go down those vertical rails, remember? God knows I tried to convince her not to go, but she was just too determined."

Wheatley wasn't sure who to be angry with; Doug for giving him this news or himself for causing all of this trouble in the first place.

"Doug," Wheatley said with a hint of desperation in his voice. "If you had to make an educated guess, what are the odds of her being okay?"

"I really have no idea, Wheatley," Doug said solemnly. "There's no way of knowing. You know how unpredictable this place is."

Wheatley was clearly in great distress. Doug didn't know why—and he hated it—but he sympathized with the core.

"But she's _probably_ okay," Doug said, trying to sound more certain than he really was. "She's a smart core."

"Yeah, she is," Wheatley said. His spirits lifted a little. "She can take care of herself. We've got nothing to worry about, right?"

Doug smiled. "We have nothing to worry about."

"But…I can't find her," Wheatley said, the anxiety rushing back into him. "I've looked everywhere for her and I can't find her. What if she's lost?"

"Just because she's out of your reach doesn't mean she's lost," Doug pointed out.

"I just can't help but worry. She's everything to me, mate. I'm lost without her."

"I know," Doug said. "She's determined, though. Determination like hers can go a long way."

"You don't have to tell me what I want to hear," Wheatley said. "Why are you trying to make me feel better?"

"Because Nora loves you," Doug admitted. "And as her friend, I'm trying really hard to—"

"Core Reactor Meltdown is eminent," a voice suddenly said over the speakers. "Please evacuate the facility immediately."

"Shut up!" Wheatley cried. "Shut up! Shut up! I _know_ that there's a bloody meltdown occurring!"

"Wheatley, how long has it been saying that?" Doug asked. He could already feel the panic rising in him.

"It's been bloody going on like that for hours!"

"_Hours?"_


	32. Chapter 32: Helper Monkey

Nora couldn't help but notice something bulging slightly in the back of Charlie's jumpsuit. She didn't know what it was until he suddenly whipped it out of his jumpsuit. It was a large wrench.

"Charlie?" she asked timidly. "Where did you get that wrench?"

Charlie didn't respond, though. He looked around the chamber, trying to find some way to make it so that Chell could get to the exit. There were no portal-conductive surfaces, but there was a pipe going up to the ceiling that pumped the white gel to a different part of the facility. Charlie climbed up onto the pipe like a monkey, and he started working on it with the wrench.

"What's that kid doin'?" Kurt asked, staring at the boy.

"I guess he's trying to make an exit," Nora replied.

They both watched Charlie as he used the wrench to remove the bolts from the pipe. He carefully put the bolts in his pocket in case he needed them later on. When all of the bolts were removed, he began to work on twisting the curve of the pipe with all of his might.

"Don't strain yourself, buddy!" Kurt said, concerned.

Charlie offered him an encouraging smile when suddenly the pipe gave away and fell down so that the curve was turned upside down. The white gel flowed out onto the floor in the chamber. The rest of the pipe automatically retreated to the depths above. Charlie grinned with pride.

"Well, I'll be!" Kurt said. "You're stronger than you look, kid!"

"Yeah, I wish I could have helped in some way," Nora said. "Well done, Charlie."

"I just like to help," Charlie said. He tried to spread the gel around as much as he could before they moved on. It wasn't easy but the two cores were able to carry Charlie up parallel to an elevator shaft. Kurt was able to hold onto the human, but he wasn't designed to carry something so heavy for too long. Just as Kurt put him down on a catwalk, the first joint of his right leg broke off.

"What was that sound?" Nora asked when she heard the leg clatter onto the catwalk. They were so high up that the light from the ground didn't even reach them. Nora took a chance with turning on her flashlight and she saw the leg. "Kurt! Are you okay?! What happened?!"

"I'm alright, darlin'!" Kurt insisted. "I just didn't have a good grip on the boy. I still have half of the leg."

"Nora!" Charlie suddenly said. "Make light go there!" He was pointing over at a nearby pipe that dipped down in a U-shape and went back up. The pipe was pumping blue gel through it. When Nora directed her light at it, Charlie studied the pipe and the floor below. Then he climbed up onto the handrail of the catwalk.

"Charlie, what are you doing?!" Nora asked.

"I need to help the lady," Charlie said. Then he jumped toward the pipe. Nora screamed, but when Charlie grabbed the pipe and was able to pull himself up onto it, she sighed.

"Don't scare me like that!" Nora exclaimed.

"Easy, girl," Kurt said. "He has Long Fall Boots. If he fell he would survive."

"I still worry," Nora said. "Charlie, you're a monkey."

Charlie must have understood what monkey meant because he smiled. "Danke!" He reached to the underside of the U-shape and started taking bolts off with his wrench. Once the bolts were all gone, he was able to pry the pipe open just enough for the blue gel to drip out of it. He jumped from the pipe back to the catwalk and watched as Chell came into the chamber.

Chell looked around the chamber. It looked so bare and devoid of life. She was getting so tired of electronic voices even as the potato tried to be encouraging. She failed horribly when she pointed out that Wheatley was most likely going to kill them. Chell still couldn't believe that Wheatley had turned on her so quickly. He had been pretty nice to her in the short time that they had known each other. She had actually been excited about taking him with her to civilization. But now he hated her over delusional thoughts that he was having about how Chell had bossed him around and that she hadn't made any sacrifice.

_What the hell did he sacrifice anyway?_ Chell thought bitterly._ I risked my life just like he did. We were both hurt at least a little. I still have cuts and bruises from the last time I had to escape. He didn't "sacrifice" any more than I did._

She tried not to think about Wheatley because it was bumming her out, but her mind kept wandering to the little core. Why had he gotten so upset? There seemed to be more to him than she knew, and she wished she could have gotten to know him better. She hadn't had a friend in such a long time. She could still remember how the other girls at Bring Your Daughter to Work Day had teased her for being adopted. She and the German boy had been the outcasts for that whole day. Why had that boy been there anyway? Maybe his mother had just wanted a daughter. Chell hoped that his mother hadn't taken it too far by dressing him up in dresses. He had been a cute kid. It was too bad that he had probably died from neurotoxin or testing.

_Wait, what's this?_


	33. Chapter 33: Hope For the Higher Level

Chell looked up at a large passage of pipes and air ducts above her. There was a portal conductive panel that was angled upward. She already had a portal right under the dripping of white gel so she popped a portal on the panel. Suddenly, the white gel was bouncing out of the vents of the air ducts and covering the walls of the passage. She shot a portal up to the highest point she could see that was covered in white and shot another on the white wall on her level.

When she went through the portal, she became completely disoriented. The passage was so slanted that Chell wasn't exactly sure which way was up until she saw the sign with the arrows pointing up. She walked up the slanted floor and saw a wall that was portal conductive through a metal grate above her. She made her way into the room above her. The room was huge and filled with pipes. Just another deserted part of the facility. Damn. She had had a good feeling about going this way. She looked up and spotted an office that was missing a ceiling high above her. She used momentum to throw herself into the small room. In the room were a poster and a control panel with one large red button. She approached the button with high expectations for it. A big red button isn't just used for something trivial like the lights.

"Wait! I've got an idea!" GLaDOS said. "That poster! Go look at it for a second, would you?"

Chell turned and looked at the poster. There were three paradoxes given as examples to use in front of a rogue AI.

"_THIS STATEMENT IS FALSE!"_

"_NEW MISSION: REFUSE THIS MISSION!"_

"_DOES A SET OF ALL SETS CONTAIN ITSELF?"_

"Paradoxes," GLaDOS said. "No AI can resist thinking about them."

Chell smiled at these paradoxes. She liked puzzles and riddles and anything else that made her think. Paradoxes were one of her favorites because she liked to see if she could make any sense of them.

"I know how we can beat him!"

Suddenly, Chell realized that she was excited to see Wheatley again. She really missed that blue eye of his as he looked down at her from a management rail. How was he doing with the facility? Was he still power-hungry or was he having a mental breakdown? She hoped he wasn't too stressed out. She knew that he didn't want to have the responsibility of the facility all on him. He had just wanted to get out, right? Just her and Wheatley, right?

She turned back to the button which she noticed was labeled "HATCH OVERRIDE." She pushed it and the lights went out. She was beginning to think that maybe it was just a light switch until a gigantic hatch above her opened and banged on the wall. Light poured into the room from the ceiling and three pipes connected to the pipes below to transport the gel throughout the rest of the facility. A catwalk started to descend toward her. She jumped down the long distance to the floor and watched as the bit of catwalk connected with the lower catwalk. The gate on the severed catwalk opened and closed again when Chell walked through it. Then it began to rise. Chell's heartbeat sped up as she thought about being in the higher, newer part of the facility. She might have even missed it just because it was cleaner and had Wheatley up there. And her guardian angel. Maybe he would be waiting for her when the catwalk stopped. Her stomach fluttered nervously at this thought.

When the catwalk stopped ascending, there was no one waiting for her. She sighed in disappointment and looked around. There were springy-looking pillars all around her behind a fence. As she looked out into the dusty darkness, she could have sworn that she could see a purple light. Was that a core? She contemplated calling out to the core, but decided that she didn't want GLaDOS to hear her speak. She was still cross with the potato for everything that she had done to her so she kept quiet as she went up a metal staircase.


	34. Chapter 34: Only One Real Monster

Nora moved ahead of the others. She was ready for her revenge, to put Wheatley back in his place. She didn't care about anything but finding Wheatley right now. The smugness in his voice still rang clearly in her memory. Was that his voice she heard just ahead of her? No, it was Kurt trying to call her back. She ignored him and sped up. She was planning out what she was going to do when she saw Wheatley again when suddenly, a heavy net flew up in front of her and pull her off of her rail. She thrashed around as much as she could to no avail.

"Nora!" Kurt called. "What'd ya go?"

"Kurt!" Nora called back, but she was suddenly dumped into Wheatley's lair.

"Who's Kurt, love?" Wheatley asked as he stared down at her.

"Um, no one," Nora said, looking away from him. She couldn't even bare to look into his eye.

"Oh, Nora," Wheatley said. His voice was so tender and weak. He sounded on the verge of tears. "Nora, love, I missed you so much. I-I've been so lonely. I had Doug for a while but he got fed up with me just as everyone else does."

Nora wanted to cry from hearing him like this. Despite her anger, she had missed him so much. But she still kept her gaze away. He had been horrible to her.

"Nora, please look at me," Wheatley whimpered. "Please, I need to see your beautiful eye again. I missed you so much! Please! Look at me!" Wheatley let out a sob but tried to contain himself from actually crying. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you! Truly, I am sorry! I love you, Nora! I was a monster to you, I know, but I need you. I didn't know just how much you mean to me until you were gone. I _need_ you, love."

His words sounded so sincere that Nora had to look at him. There was that kind blue eye that she had grown to love so much. There was her Wheatley.

"Oh, Wheatley," Nora said. "I….I missed you, too. I just realized how much I really missed you. You seem different now. Different from the jerk that had hurt me."

"I was absolutely miserable after what I did you," Wheatley said. "And I felt even worse after I heard that Doug didn't know where you were. Nora, I love you so much. I will never hurt you like that again."

"I love you, too, Wheatley," Nora said. "Please, promise me we will leave this place. Please."

"You know I can't do that." Wheatley's voice suddenly became more stern. "Someone has to stay here to run the facility."

Nora sighed in disappointment. "I thought you had changed."

"I have! I swear I have! But you know someone has to be in this body and…..Well, would you trust any of the bleeding _Nanobots_ to do the job?"

"Well, there must be a core we can ask to take over," Nora said, wondering if she should suggest Kurt or not.

"No!" Wheatley exclaimed. "I have to be in charge! No one else is competent enough!"

"You're not even trying!" Nora yelled. "Don't you want to leave with me?"

"Nora, I'll get back to you," Wheatley said. "I need to check on these Cubes really quick."

"What in the name of everything good are those?" Nora asked as she spotted the Frankenturrets that Wheatley had created on a monitor that he had installed in his lair. There were two turret heads squished into a Weighted Storage Cube. It had only two legs to pull itself forward. The robots had to struggle to hop around and try to find a purpose. There was a large button in the chamber but none of the Frankenturrets wanted to step on it because they were all clearly terrified.

"For god's sake, you're _boxes_ with _legs!"_ Wheatley complained. "That's _literally_ your only purpose! Walking onto buttons! How can you not do the only thing you were designed for?"

"Wheatley, what the hell are those things?!" Nora asked.

"Quiet, love," Wheatley said, turning to her. "I'm using them to test because _you_ wouldn't."

Nora could tell that he was trying to make her feel guilty, and all of the anger she had previously felt rushed back into her.

Wheatley turned back to the monitor. "Warmer. Warmer. Boiling hot. Boiling—Okay, colder. Ice cold. You're arctic not. You're very cold. Very very very cold. LOOK, JUST GET ON THE BUTTON!" He paused as the Frankenturrets chirped. "Oh, that's funny, is it? That's funny? Because we've been at this for twelve hours and you haven't solved it either so I don't know why _you're_ laughing! You've got one hour! Solve it!" He turned back to Nora. "So where have you been all this time?"

"Wheatley, how could you do that to those poor bots?!" Nora demanded. "What you did was cruel!"

"Nora, you're speaking too loud, love," Wheatley said. "I don't want to have to mute you."


	35. Chapter 35: An Angel Is Spotted

Doug stared down at the pathetic chamber that Wheatley had thrown together. There were holes in the ceiling, and Wheatley didn't seem to care anymore that Doug was running around the facility. Doug just couldn't stand the idiocy of that bot any longer. They were both going to die when the meltdown finally occurred and Doug wasn't sure if he even cared anymore. What did he have to live for anymore?

"For god's sake, you're _boxes_ with _legs!"_ Wheatley complained. "That's _literally_ your only purpose! Walking onto buttons! How can you not do the only thing you were designed for?"

Wheatley turned away from the monitor and Doug could have sworn that he was mumbling something to someone in his lair. Doug tried to strain his ears to hear, but he thought he saw something move in the observation room. He thought it was his imagination, but when he looked over, he was so startled that he almost fell over. Chell was standing in the observation room looking out at the chamber. Wheatley seemed to be too distracted to notice her. Doug squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. She was still there. But was she _really_ here? Was she _really, truly_ here? His heart was racing. He hadn't felt so hopeful in a really long time.

"Warmer. Warmer. Boiling hot. Boiling—Okay, colder. Ice cold. You're Arctic now. You're very cold. Very very very cold. LOOK, JUST GET ON THE BUTTON!"

Chell shot a portal through a vent and shot another in the observation room. A smile spread across Doug's face.

"How can you not do the only thing you were designed for?"

Chell entered an observation room and saw Wheatley. He had installed a monitor into this chamber so that he could watch the testing. She smiled when she saw him, but it quickly faded when she saw the crazy turret/Weight Storage Cube creatures.

_What the…?_

She squinted. Were there two turrets crammed into each Cube? What had Wheatley done? GLaDOS didn't seem to care at all.

"Warmer. Warmer. Boiling hot. Boiling—Okay, colder. Ice cold. You're Arctic not. You're very cold. Very very very cold. LOOK, JUST GET ON THE BUTTON!"

What had happened to her little buddy? Why was he so evil now? She looked around the chamber and her gaze stopped at a face in a hole in the ceiling. A human face. He had long, shaggy hair and a rough beard. Both were jet black. And he was smiling at her.

_My guardian angel!_

She looked back to Wheatley to see if he noticed the face, then looked back to the ceiling, but the man was gone.

Doug hurried away from the hole in the ceiling when they had met eyes. She had seen him, and she had looked happy. Or was that excitement on her face? Either way, Doug's smile grew bigger.

"Good," he said out loud. "Good! I'm glad she saw me! She finally knows who's looking out for her!"

"Oh, that's funny, is it? That's funny? Because we've been at this for twelve hours and you haven't solved it either so I don't know why _you're_ laughing! You've got one hour! Solve it!" Wheatley disappeared from the monitor.

Doug looked back down and she was gone. "She must be making her way into the test chamber," he mumbled. "She'll make things right. At least _somebody_ came back up here."

_I know I saw someone!_ Chell thought. _There was definitely a man up in the ceiling! It was the man that guided me through the facility before!_

She walked along a catwalk toward the chamber. A short lift brought her up to another catwalk, and she suddenly started to panic. What if Wheatley just tried to kill her again when he saw her?

_He didn't _mean_ to,_ she insisted to herself. _He was just angry. Wait, that's something that people being abused say. I just don't know _what_ to think._

The catwalk ended and dropped her off in a ditch that led her to the entrance of the test. When she crossed the threshold of the chamber, she immediately looked up to try to spot the man again, but she had no luck.

"Solve this puzzle for him," GLaDOS said. "When he comes back, I'll hit him with a paradox."

Chell used her Portal Gun to lift one of the poor robots. Both turret heads looked at her with terrified little eyes.

_I'm sorry, little guy,_ Chell thought as she set it down on the large button on the floor.

Wheatley suddenly reappeared on the monitor. "Ha ha, YES! I knew you'd solve it!"

"Hey, moron," GLaDOS said.

_Yeah, that's a smart thing to say to the bot that wants us dead._

"Oh. Hello." Wheatley seemed surprised that they were back, but he didn't seem to care. It was like it didn't even matter to him. Chell felt her heart sink a little.

"Alright," GLaDOS said. "Paradox time. This. Sentence. Is. FALSE. Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it…"

"Um, _true_. I'll go true."

Chell cracked a smile. _What? Why did he answer at all? Did he think it was a riddle?_

"Huh. That was easy," Wheatley continued. "I'll be honest. I might have heard that one before, though. Sort of cheating."

"It's a _paradox!"_ GLaDOS said. "There _is_ no answer! Look! This place is going to blow up if I don't get back in my body!"

"Ahhhhh, false. I'll go false."

_Did he really think that was another paradox?_

Suddenly, a voice said on the intercom, "Explosion imminent. Evacuate the facility immediately."

"Hold on!" Wheatley said, leaving the monitor. "I thought I fixed that."

"Warning. Reactor core is at critical temperature." There was static over the intercom and the voice stopped.

"There," Wheatley said, reappearing. "Fixed."

_What exactly is going on?_ Chell wondered. _What was that voice talking about? Do we even have enough time to clean up Wheatley's mess before this place blows?_

"Hey, it is _great_ seeing you guys again," Wheatley said. Chell's spirits quickly rose and fell again between this sentence and the next. "Seriously. It turns out I'm a little short on test subjects right now. So this works out perfect."

_Perfect__**ly**__, you jerk,_ Chell corrected with a scowl.

"Annnnd off we go!"


	36. Chapter 36: Caged and Tased

"You have no idea what it's like in this body," Wheatley said to Chell. "I _have_ to test. All the time. Or I get this…..this _itch_. It must be hardwired into the system or something."

"Then why don't you leave the body?" Nora grumbled.

"Ohhh. But I tell you, when I _do_ test….Ohhh! Man alive! Nothing feels better! It's just…why I've gotta test! I've gotta test!"

Nora just shook her head.

"So you're gonna test, and I'm gonna watch. And everything is gonna be just…._fine."_

"Warning: Core overheating. Nuclear meltdown imminent."

"SHUT UP!"

"Wheatley, please calm down," Nora said. "I hate seeing you like this. Relax."

Wheatley sighed. "Sorry, love." He turned back to the monitor and Nora recognized the next test. It was her test. "Designed this one myself. It's a little bit difficult. Notice the moat area. Very deadly. Extremely dangerous. Eventually. Not at the moment. I'm still working on it, still working on it."

Chell pushed the small button and a Frankenturret dropped down onto the large button.

"Ohhhhhh, yes," Wheatley sighed with pleasure. "Ohhhhh, well done. Ohhh, that's tremendous."

"Good for you," Nora said. "Really. I'm glad that another female was able to make you feel better than I could have."

"I'm going to ignore that," Wheatley grumbled to her. Then he turned back to Chell and said, "Oh, that felt really good. Here's an idea. Since making tests is difficult, why don't you just keep solving this test? Same one. And I can just…watch you solve it. Yes. That sounds much easier."

"I don't think that's going to work," Nora said. "Otherwise, what would be the point in testing at all?"

Wheatley muted the mic for the test chamber. "Nora, love, I'm trying my best," he said. "Will you just stop nagging me?"

"I don't like how much pleasure you're getting out this testing."

"Don't be jealous, dear. You didn't want to be the one to push the button, remember?"

"I am _not_ jealous," Nora said, but she pouted anyway.

Chell went in a loop and pressed the small button again.

"Annnnnnnnd…Nothing," Wheatley said, disappointed. "Alright, can't blame me for trying. Okay…New tests, new tests…There's gotta be some tests around here somewhere." He checked the data files in the system about test chambers. "Oh! Here we go!"

Chell went into the lift and Wheatley muted the mic again.

"Nora, you can admit that you're jealous," he said. "It's cute."

"I'm not!" Nora insisted. "I'm just angry that you need to test to be happy in this body."

"Hey, that's not true! I'm happy with you!"

"Then why don't you let that poor woman go?"

"Because I _need_ to test!" Wheatley shouted. "Look! Just stop harassing me! Try to relax here!"

"I'm rolling around on the floor."

"Fine!" Wheatley constructed a cage around a bit of a management rail and picked up Nora with a claw to attach her to the rail.

"Wheatley, are you crazy?!" Nora yelled. She thrashed around in his grasp. "I don't want to be put in a cage!"

"Love, I'd appreciate it if you didn't move around so much. I'd hate it if I accidentally _crushed you_ while trying to keep my grip on you."

Nora stopped moving and let Wheatley attach her to the rail. "Isn't that better?" Wheatley asked.

"Well, it's better than rolling around on the floor like a soccer ball."

"Good. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"

"Remove the cage?"

Wheatley laughed. "Yeah, right!" he said. "So that you can escape and put your life at risk again? I don't think so. Is there anything I can do besides that?"

"Join me on this rail," Nora said. "I miss having you on the rail with me. I miss having you tickle me."

"I can _still_ tickle you!" Wheatley said. He sent an electric shock onto the rail but it was too much. Nora screamed instead of giggling, and Wheatley immediately stopped. "Oops. Um….Sorry?"


	37. Chapter 37: All Good Things Never Last

Chell was actually interested to see Wheatley's next test. What would he be able to challenge her with? She entered the next test just as he was saying, "It's alright! Everything's good. I just invented some more tests!"

"This is one of my tests!" GLaDOS claimed.

"Not entirely," Wheatley insisted. "Not entirely. Look at the word 'test' there, on the wall. That's brand new."

_Oh,_ Chell thought. _He's just going to be a big copycat._

She approached a large blue tunnel-thing in the chamber. _What is this? Can I walk through this?_ She walked into it and suddenly found herself floating up. She laughed a little to herself. She spun around until she stopped at the ceiling. Looking around, she noticed that the blue tunnel had brought her up into a room above the entrance. There was a Frankenturret on a high ledge in the room. She shot a portal above her and another one on the wall so that she flowed right over to the ledge. It was easy to make the Frankenturret flow up to the button on the ceiling.

_I hope the next one is harder, _Chell thought. _This was almost too easy. And Wheatley's reaction to my solving the test is disturbing me. It can't feel that good, can it?_

"Are you just going to use _her_ tests or are you going to come up with any of your own?" Nora asked. If she couldn't escape or beat him, why not just make conversation with him?

"I'm just using hers as a sort of springboard," Wheatley said. "I'm still really new at this."

"I suppose," Nora said. "But you look like a copycat if you just use _her_ tests. You need to stimulate that woman. She's got so much potential."

"Yeesh," Wheatley said jokingly. "Now _I'm_ getting a bit jealous. You sure seem to admire her."

"I can appreciate her skill," Nora said. "She's a very smart woman."

"You should be the president of her fan club."

"Very funny." Nora was glad she couldn't smile to give Wheatley the satisfaction of knowing that he had amused her.

"How's this?" Wheatley asked. "I put a few tests together so technically, I did create it." He moved aside so that she could see it on the monitor.

"Yeah, that one's alright, I guess," Nora said. "I mean, it's a good start."

"That almost sounded like a compliment," Wheatley said. "I knew you weren't still mad at me."

"Believe me—I _am_ still mad at you. I just don't want to argue."

"Yeah, um…Sorry again about that electric shock."

"The test subject is coming."

Wheatley turned around just as the woman was entering the chamber. "Yeah…Made this test myself," he said. "Out of some smaller tests. That I found. Lying around. Jammed 'em all together. Buttons. Got funnels. Bottomless pits are involved. It's got it all. It's got it all—absolute dynamite."

"I wanna watch, too," Nora murmured.

Wheatley muted the mic. "I'll bring a one-way monitor in here after this test. Okay, love?" After a few seconds, he turned the mic back on. "Alright. Okay, this is taking too long. I'll just tell you how to solve the test, okay? See that button over there? You just need to—" He was interrupted by a massive electric shock that came from the body he was in. Nora gasped as she watched him scream and twist with pain. He panted hard when it was over.

"Wh-Wheatley?" Nora squeaked.

"Nevermind," he said to the test subject. "Nevermind. Solve it yourself. You're on your own." He muted the mic again and looped footage of him watching Chell through the monitor so that he could slump down and groan from the pain. "Man alive! That was agony!"

"Are you okay?" Nora asked.

"Yeah, I'm alright," he insisted. "I'm alright. I just need a moment."

"I think the test subject is about to solve it."

"Oh, blimey," Wheatley groaned. He unmuted the mic and stopped the looping video. Chell was indeed solving the test quite quickly. The Frankenturret floated up to a button on the ceiling, and Wheatley felt the amazing sensation that was released in this body whenever a subject solved a test. "Oh, yes," he said. "Well done."

"Thanks!" GLaDOS said in the chamber. "All we had to do was pull that lever."

"What? No, you pressed that—AGGGHH!" Another electric shock was administered in the body.

"Wheatley!" Nora cried.

He quickly muted the mic. "I can't believe I fell for that! I'm such a moron!"

Doug settled into the observation deck for the next test chamber. The test didn't seem finished. There was a button on the ceiling and the door, but nothing to push the button. There was an exertion funnel generator on the wall, but that couldn't be used for Chell to hit.

"Coming!" Wheatley suddenly said. "Coming! Don't start yet! Don't start yet!"

"He sure likes to repeat himself," Doug said.

"You're not going to believe this. I found a sealed off wing. Hundreds –HUNDREDS!—of perfectly good test chambers. Just sitting there. Filled with skeletons. Shook them out. Good as new!" As Wheatley said this, an alarm started to go off and the chamber began to shake.

"What the hell is he doing?" Doug wondered aloud.

He fell over as the chamber felt like it collided with another. He swore when he hit his head on the desk in the office, and he clasped his hand to his mouth to stop him from making too much noise. Wheatley didn't seem to take any notice, though. He seemed distracted with something else.

"_Maybe he's trying to trick you, Dougie,"_ said a paranoid voice in his head.

_I doubt it, _he thought, crawling under the desk to hide. _He's probably just still upset about Nora._ He watched Chell navigate her way across a bottomless pit through an exertion funnel, and he couldn't see her anymore_. What's the point of this observation deck if I can't observe the subject at all times?_

"Okay, can you see it now?" Wheatley said quietly.

Doug could barely hear it, but he knew Wheatley was talking to someone. He strained his ears and heard another voice. He couldn't hear what it said, but he definitely heard a second voice. _Or did I?_ he thought. _Could I just be imagining the second voice? I could even be imagining Wheatley talking._ Doug sighed. He had no idea of knowing for sure whether or not it had been real. And anyway, who could Wheatley have been talking to?

"_Nora?"_

Doug shook his head at the voice that had suggested this. If he thought this, he would just be giving his hopes up. He didn't need this right now. All he could do was hope that he would see Nora again.

"But what if I don't?" Doug muttered to himself. "It wouldn't kill me to check to see if she _is_ in Wheatley's chamber."

Chell suddenly reappeared on his side of the chamber. She was looking around, but she didn't appear to be examining the test. It looked as though she were searching for something. Her eyes kept stopping at the observation deck.

_Is she…looking for me?_ Doug thought. He stayed hidden as he watched her look around. After a few seconds, she looked disappointed and worked on the rest of the test. Doug smiled, though. He was so glad that she knew about him now. Maybe he would introduce him to her soon…

"Ohhh, here we go," Wheatley said with anticipation. "Here it comes…Ahungh. Oh. Disappointing."

Wait, what? Doug thought. Did he not get the euphoria from someone solving a test? "What does this mean?" he asked aloud. "I wasn't working on directly constructing GLaDOS so I have no idea why he didn't get any satisfaction this time."

"Wheatley, are you okay?"

"Nora?" Doug strained his ears again, but the intercom was muted.


	38. Chapter 38: Who was I in my past life?

"I'm going to try a new tactic," Wheatley said as he waited for the test subject to arrive at the next test.

"Why? What new tactic?" Nora asked.

"Well, I didn't feel much from that last test so I must be doing something wrong," Wheatley explained. "Maybe I'll try doing what _she_ did."

"Nothing extreme, right?" Nora asked.

"No! No, of course not! Don't worry, you'll see what I mean."

Chell entered the test chamber and immediately began to study her surroundings.

"Alright. So that last test was... seriously disappointing," Wheatley said. "Apparently being civil isn't motivating you. So let's try things her way... fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty fatty no-parents."

"And?" GLaDOS asked.

"What?"

"What, exactly, is wrong with being adopted?"

"Wh-What's wrong with being adopted? Um. Well, um…lack of parents, for one. And…"

"For the record: _You_ are adopted, and that's terrible," GLaDOS interrupted.

"Some of my best friends are…orphans. But…"

"Also, look at her, you moron. She's not fat."

"I AM NOT A MORON!" Wheatley exploded. "Just…do the test. Just do the test." He muted the mic and looped the video again. "Ugh! She really gets on my nerves sometimes!"

"Well, that didn't really work out, did it?" Nora muttered.

"Did it _look_ like it worked out?!" Wheatley shouted. He sighed.

"Hey, Wheatley," Nora said. "Do you ever wonder who your parents were?"

"What? Why would I do that?"

"Well, don't you wonder about the life you used to have?"

"Only after Doug had told me that we had met each other when we were still humans."

Nora's eye widened. "Really?" she asked. "What all did he tell you?"

"Not much more than that," Wheatley said. "What do you think I looked like? I bet I was a hunk with blonde hair and big muscles."

"Actually, while I was running around all over the facility, I found a bunch of vegetated humans. One of them was named Wheatley Burns."

"Wheatley Burns," he repeated. "That sounds professional."

"You were pale with red hair. You were also pretty scrawny."

"Are you sure that was me?"

"Well, the body was labeled with _your_ name."

Wheatley checked on the test subject. She was floating up through an exertion tunnel to the exit.

"Nngh! It's not enough!" Wheatley said. "If _I'm_ such a moron, why can't you solve a simple test?" He muted the mic again. "Augh! Why isn't this working?" He turned to Nora. "And that could have been a different Wheatley."

"I recognized the face," Nora replied. "I just knew it was you."

"You did? Do you know what _you_ looked like?"

"Small and blonde."

"I bet you were adorable. That _sounds_ adorable."

"Adorable enough to put in a cage."

"Yes! Let's say that _that_ is the reason why you're in there. You're so cute that I don't want to share you with anyone."

Nora's mind suddenly went to Kurt for some reason. Where was he? He didn't know his way around the facility like Nora did. What if he and Charlie got lost? What if Wheatley caught them?

"Nora?"

She looked back at Wheatley. "What?"

"You didn't respond. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "I was just, uh, thinking about…Doug."

"Oh! You're going to be happy about this, love," Wheatley said. "For you, I promised Doug that I won't kill him. Isn't that great?"

"Where is he now?"

"He left my chamber when the intercom was talking about the meltdown," Wheatley said. "I have no idea where he went. He probably ran off to one of his little rat nests."

"Well, I miss him," Nora said. "Don't you? At least a little bit?"

Wheatley looked away. "Maybe a little bit," he admitted. He thought back to Doug when he was muttering to himself and crying. And then, despite being humiliated in front of Wheatley, Doug comforted him by telling him what he wanted to hear. When Wheatley had been panicking over Nora's absence, Doug had been there for support. They were sort friends by now, right? "I hope he's okay," Wheatley said quietly.

"I do, too," Nora agreed. "I'm sure he's around here somewhere." _Maybe he's even spying on us,_ she hoped.


	39. Chapter 39: Secret Admirer

"I don't know where we're going," Kurt said as he slid along the management rail. "Do you, Charlie?"

Charlie shook his head.

"The facility looks so…different now," Kurt said as he looked at the decrepit state of the walls. "I sure wish Nora was here to help guide us."

"I do, too," Charlie said.

Suddenly, they heard strange music coming from behind a wall off to their right. There was a hole in the wall so Kurt peered through it. It looked like a test chamber. There were pipes going through the walls and an odd blue tunnel of light.

"Charlie, come 'ere!" Kurt said. "I think I found a test chamber."

Charlie approached the hole and looked into the chamber. "I've seen this before," he said.

"Did you have to run this test?" Kurt asked.

"Yes."

"How do you like the music?" Wheatley suddenly said. "Pretty classy, right?" Kurt and Charlie ducked away from the hole in the wall, scared that they had been spotted. But then they realized that Wheatley was talking to someone else because they could hear a reply through the speakers.

"It's kind of annoying," said a faint voice. "I like that you're trying to improve the environment, but can't you play something else?"

"Was that Nora?" Kurt asked. "You heard that voice, too, right?"

Charlie nodded.

"You just don't understand," Wheatley said. "This is _intellectual_ music. For intellects. Oh, I forgot to turn off this mic again." Then there was silence.

"Charlie, I think that Wheatley guy has captured Nora," Kurt said. "There's gotta be something we can do."

They suddenly heard the turning of a book page and Wheatley's voice came back just as the young woman was entering the chamber. "Oh, sorry, sorry. Hope that didn't disturb you just then. It was the sound of books. Pages being turned."

"Geez, that guy sure is arrogant," Kurt muttered. "Nora said he was an intelligence-dampening sphere. He must be trying to act smart with this darn music and by pretending to read."

Charlie was barely listening. He was staring at Chell as she solved the test. She was so elegant and graceful—despite her sweat stains on her tank top. He wanted to do anything he could to help her get out of this place, but he had no idea what he could do for her right now. Maybe if he helped her, she would give him a kiss. His stomach fluttered with nervous butterflies as he imagined her smiling at him gratefully.

"I see you lookin' at her," Kurt said, nudging the boy. "I'll make sure you get to meet her."

The woman finished the test and took one more look around as Wheatley complained about something. Was Chell searching for something? Charlie couldn't tell. He leaned forward through the hole in the wall.

"Whoa!" Kurt said, quickly grabbing the boy's shoulder with one of his legs. "Hold on there, kid! You almost fell! You gotta be more careful."

Charlie was embarrassed. He felt like a creep for looking at her so closely. He looked Chell one more time before she walked through the exit and the door closed behind her.

"Come one, kid," Kurt said. "Let's get going. Maybe if we follow that woman we can find some clues as to where Nora might be."

Charlie just nodded again and followed Kurt with his head down. If she had caught him staring at her, she definitely wouldn't give him a kiss. She would probably just think he's weird and run away from him.

Chell could feel eyes on her as she solved the test. It wasn't just Wheatley watching her; she could feel at least one other gaze on her. Was he guardian angel still watching her? She desperately wanted to meet him. She was sick and tired of computers and monitors and tests. She longed for her old life. She missed the summer nights of her childhood when she would lay out in the grass with her adopted mother and stare up at the stars. Her mother had taught her some of the constellations and what they represented. But now her mother was dead. _Everyone_ here was dead except for Chell and her guardian angel. If she could escape, she wanted to bring him with her.

Just before the left the test, she turned around to look for him. Her gaze quickly scanned the room, but she knew she wouldn't find him so easily. He didn't want to be found. Disappointed, she turned away.


	40. Chapter 40: The Robot Drug

"If he's not getting his solution euphoria, we could be in a lot of trouble," GLaDOS said as Chell stepped out of the elevator.

_Has that new body of his been giving him some sort of robot drug? _Chell thought. _If so, that's a terrible idea. Of course Wheatley isn't in this for the science. He's in this for that euphoric feeling you're talking about._

She headed toward the test and Wheatley announced that he was going to move the test chamber closer to him. "Had a thought: Maybe proximity to the test solving might give us stronger results."

"It won't," GLaDOS said smartly.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Oh. Sorry. Could have sworn you said something."

"He's taking us right to him," GLaDOS said. "This is perfect."

The chamber shook and Chell could feel Wheatley moving it through the facility. She was able to keep her balance on her feet as Wheatley moved the chamber. She began to wonder how exactly she would be able to defeat Wheatley. It wouldn't be like how she had defeated GLaDOS before. Wheatley didn't have other cores hanging off of him so she wouldn't be burning any cores (hopefully). So what would she do? Just rip him out of the body? She didn't like the idea of that. She was okay with hurting GLaDOS, but Wheatley had been her friend. There was no way she was going to hurt or kill him. There had to be an easier way.

When the room stopped, Chell noticed that there was an Aerial Faith Plate pointed at Wheatley's monitor. She smiled as she approached the Plate. She stepped onto it and quickly turned so that her shoulder hit the monitor. Pain bloomed where her shoulder met with the screen, but she laughed a little when she noticed that the screen had broken. _Worth it._

"Aw. Bless your little primate brain," Wheatley said. "I'm not actually in the room with you. Am I? Technology. It's complicated. Can't hurt the big god face."

_Yeah, whatever,_ Chell thought as she began to solve the test. _Just you wait until I'm in front of your 'god face.' I'll show you._ But how would she show him? Maybe they would have a battle of wits. She knew she would win if it came down to that.

She shot a portal down into a pit so that a light bridge created a barrier so that the turrets wouldn't shoot her. Another thing that Chell was getting tired of was turrets. _I'm probably going to have post-traumatic stress disorder when I get out of here, _she thought._ I'm going to need therapy. Maybe I can find a shelter with a counselor. I'm sure not going to be able to afford a private therapist for a few years._ Chell didn't actually know what she was going to do when she got out of the facility. She couldn't remember where Aperture was exactly so civilization could be miles away for all she knew. All she knew was that she couldn't wait for a nice hot bath.

Chell managed to get the Frankenturret onto the button, but Wheatley still wasn't satisfied. He questioned if she was even solving it the "right" way. Chell wondered if maybe it was possible to use a _wrong_ solution to a test, but then she decided that that was ridiculous. Testing was testing, right? GLaDOS had nothing to say about Wheatley's comments on her testing and this worried Chell a little.


	41. Chapter 41: STOP TALKING

"I don't get it," Wheatley said. "Why isn't it working now?

"Is everything alright?" Nora asked.

"Yes. Yes, of course. I just….I-I need to think." Wheatley looked down in frustration, deep in thought. Nora was worried. What was wrong? She thought the testing was making him feel so good. Why wasn't it "working" anymore?

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.

"No. No, I don't think so," Wheatley responded. "I'm just going to have to try something new. Whatever I'm doing isn't working now."

Chell entered the next test chamber and Wheatley explained his new technique to her. He said he was going to start taping her testing so that he could watch ten tapes at once. Neither Nora or Chell—or GLaDOS, for that matter—thought this would work, but none of them voiced this opinion. They could all sense Wheatley's desperation. Wheatley muted the mic but kept watching the monitor. He tried to keep a straight, even expression as he said to Nora, "You mentioned the name Kurt when I found you. Who _is_ this Kurt?"

"N-No one," Nora said, surprised he had brought this up.

"Oh, really? That's odd. That's very odd because people don't usually call out someone's name for no reason. Why don't you just tell me who he is?"

"He's just…..He's a core I met when I was searching for the test subject."

"A core? I've never heard his name before."

"Well, he's an older model," Nora explained, looking away in embarrassment. She didn't know why she was embarrassed all of a sudden. "He has turret legs."

"Does he now?" Wheatley asked, laughing a little. "Turret legs? He sounds ridiculous. He sounds like a joke. An old core with turret legs. Why were you calling out for him?"

"I-I didn't know that you were the one who had caught me in that net. I was just calling for his help."

"Is that so? You were just calling for his help? You sounded like you wanted more than his help."

Nora was scared. Was he angry with her for being with another core? They were just friends. Just really good friends. Yes, he had been so much nicer to her than Wheatley had been, but Nora could tell that he had been _designed_ for that. She had to think quickly to get out of this little mess that Wheatley was setting up.

"You're not jealous, are you?" she said. "You're so big and powerful. A little core like Kurt couldn't stand a chance against you."

"I like most of what you're saying," Wheatley said. "But I really _don't_ like hearing you say his name. Stop saying it, would you?"

"You really _are_ jealous, aren't you? After so many years of friendship, after I've told you that I love you, you still think that I'd suddenly get with a different core. I can't believe the lack of faith you have in me."

"Hey, you-you can't do that!" Wheatley stammered. "I….I'm not jealous! I just…I don't think you should trust a core you just met. He could be trying to trick you. I….Just never mention him again."

Nora realized that she seemed to hold some kind of power over him, and it made her feel so naughty. She couldn't help but try to play around with this a little more.

"I thought you trusted me," she said. "I thought we had something special. But suddenly, you don't have faith in my love for you. Maybe I should just shut down."

Wheatley put on a loop video for Chell just before he turned to Nora and yelled, "DON'T YOU EVER SAY THAT! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO SHUT DOWN! I…I forbid it…" He looked away in frustration. "Agh! What's wrong with me right now?"

"Are you okay?" Nora asked. "I'm sorry about what I said. I won't shut down."

"Y-You better not," Wheatley said. "It would get really lonely in here without you. Doug is terrible company. And that test subject never speaks to me."

"I don't think she speaks to anyone if it makes you feel better," Nora said. "She wouldn't even speak when she was in the depths of the facility."

"I'm beginning to doubt that she even has the ability to speak. She's so dumb she can't even solve a bloody test."

"I don't think it's her fault."

"Oh, so it's _my_ fault? Are you saying that there's something wrong with _me?"_

"No! That's not what I'm saying at all!" Nora said. She didn't like getting him angry. He was too unpredictable when he was angry. "I'm saying that something could be wrong with the system."

"I think you're right," Wheatley said. Anxiety could be heard in his voice again. "I can feel that…_something_ is wrong. I mean, did _she_ have to go through this?"

"I don't know," Nora said quietly.

Suddenly, Chell was just finishing the test. Hadn't she just started?

"You just solved it, didn't you?" Wheatley asked, turning his attention back to her. "I told you to tell me before you... AAAGH! Why are making this so _hard_ for me?" When the test subject was gone, Wheatley groaned again. "Why aren't I getting it? I'm not getting that feeling anymore! What's wrong with me?!"

"Nothing's wrong with you, Wheatley," Nora said.

"STOP TALKING!" Wheatley yelled. "Just stop talking! I-I don't need your reassurance! I don't need you for anything! There's nothing you can do!" He suddenly stopped yelling and his pupil shrank. With surprise? With fear? Probably both. "Nora, I….I am _truly_ sorry. I didn't mean any of that. I-I don't know why I would say such a thing."

Nora was now cowering in the makeshift cage that he had put her in. "Wheatley, I really think you need to leave that body now."

"No, I can't. I just can't. Who would run the facility? Maybe I just need a better test subject. That's it. I need someone who can solve them correctly. I can't have run out of live test subjects already. I only used up four before I couldn't find any more."

"Don't start thinking like that," Nora said. "If you think like that then you'll try killing that woman."

Wheatley muted Nora. Her pupil shrank and she thrashed around as she tried to speak.

"I'm sorry, love," Wheatley said. "Really, I am. But your voice is giving me a headache right now."

"Core meltdown imminent."

"Now if only I could shut _you_ up," Wheatley said to the system.


	42. Chapter 42: Replacements

When Chell was little, she might have thought that lasers were neat, but having to work with them up-close proved them to be more annoying than "neat." She was so paranoid around them—and for good reason. They might have even been worse than the turrets. Turrets were sometimes a little late to fire at her, but lasers were precise. And using the Redirection Cube to point to lasers around sure didn't help either. But this was a pretty easy test so it didn't take her long to get through the exit. When the doors opened, though, the metal stairs led down to a big, open space in the facility.

"Sorry about the lift," Wheatley said. "It's, uh... out of service. Because it melted."

There was one of those blue funnel things just at the bottom of the stairs and they had yet to have failed her so she jumped right into it and let it carry her.

"Might as well give you the tour," Wheatley said. "To your left... you'll see some lights of some kind. Don't know what they do. But very sciencey anyway."

_How could you be in charge for this long and not know what those are?_ Chell thought.

"And to your right, something huge hurtling towards you—OH GOD RUN! THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!"

A huge wall of the lights started falling toward her from her right. She instantly panicked. If she got out of the funnel, she would fall to her death. Then suddenly, the funnel disappeared.

"Waitwaitwait. Ohhhh," Wheatley said. "Not helpful. Rrrrrg. Don't know why I thought that would help."

Nora thrashed around again. Was she trying to say something helpful or was she just insulting Wheatley for his actions?

"Nora, dear, have you got something important to say?" Wheatley asked.

She kept wiggling and spinning around in her little cage.

"I'm guessing not by your reaction. Just hang on. I'm going to try to find her. I still need a test subject, don't I?" He searched the area that he had last seen the woman but couldn't find her. He started opening chambers and storage rooms, and he stopped when he found something even better than the woman. "Nora, if I unmute you, do you promise to behave and not say anything idiotic about how I should run the tests?"

Nora looked at him angrily, her upper shutter lowered like a brow, but she nodded. She hated him having control over her like this. All she'd had left was her ability to speak and she wanted it back. She could feel Wheatley turn her speakers back on, but she said nothing.

"I found something really interesting," Wheatley said. "You might like these. I just found them lying about in storage. I can't _believe_ I hadn't found them earlier! Hold on, let me just turn them on."

"Turn them on?" Nora asked. "What are they?"

"Ah! There we go."

Suddenly, two mechanical figures entered the chamber. One had a core with a blue eye for a head while its counterpart had what looked like a turret with an orange eye for a head. Each had two arms and two legs so they could walk around as freely as they chose.

"Aren't they amazing?" Wheatley said enthusiastically. "Guess what their main objective is."

"I don't know," Nora said. She really had no idea. Aperture probably just wanted to create robots because they thought it would be cool.

"They're made to test!" Wheatley said. "Can you believe it? This whole time I've had test subjects just waiting in storage."

"So?" Nora asked nervously. "You have that woman."

"Do I? For all we know, I just killed her on accident. These bots could do all my testing now."

"But—"

"And anyway, that woman wasn't doing very well with the tests. I wasn't getting anything from her."

Nora stared at the bot with the blue eye and it gave her a brilliant idea. "Wheatley, we can use their designs to get out of here."

"What are you talking about?" Wheatley asked, any humor or enthusiasm leaving his voice.

"Well, just think about it," she said. "If we can put ourselves into those bodies, we could just walk right out of here."

"But the facility—"

"One of these bots can take over," she continued. "They were made for testing. It's hardwired into them. They'd love being in that big body. The blue-eyed one is technically a core anyway."

"No," Wheatley said. "I don't like the idea. I better just stay in this body."

"Are you serious?" Nora said. "We have a solution to our problem literally _standing right in front of us, _but you can't be bothered to give up your power over the facility."

The blue-eyed bot looked around awkwardly while the orange-eyed one looked at Nora and Wheatley with confusion. It turned to its rounder friend and made a few high-pitched robotic chirps. The round one replied with a shrug and some lower-pitched chirps.

"Nora, I don't want to have to mute you again," Wheatley said. "I really don't. I love you and all, but your arguing is really getting on my nerves."

"Well, what exactly are you going to do now?" Nora asked.

"I'll try to test with these bots," he replied simply. "If the woman turns up alive, I'll test with her, too. For comparison. Of course. Does that satisfy you?"

"I….suppose."


	43. Chapter 43: The Part Where He Kills You

_What was that? _Chell wondered as she squinted across the bottomless pit. _It kind of looks like a robot or something._ But before she could get a good look at it, it ran through the exit.

From then on, she tried to focus on the test but she almost felt paranoid about what she had just seen. What was it Wheatley had said just seconds before? Something about getting the test ready for her and no one else. Why had he felt the need to clarify that? Chell had a suspicious feeling about what she had seen by the exit. There was nothing she could do, though. She had to keep going.

Just as she jumped into a blue funnel that took her to the exit, Wheatley told her and GLaDOS that he had a surprise for them. He was very obvious with his intentions of this "surprise" when he said they'd love it to death. He was even more obvious when he said they'd love it until it kills them.

I know he's trying to be subtle, Chell thought, but nothing about him is subtle.

It especially wasn't very subtle when a pipe suddenly crashed through the hallway right before the next test, taking out a big chunk of the floor and getting white gel all over the remains of the corridor. Chell started to wonder if maybe Wheatley would just keep promising a surprise when he actually just hoped to "accidentally" kill them. That seemed like his style. Or maybe the robot-thing she saw earlier would kill them. _That would be a little unexpected,_ Chell thought.

She breezed through this test too easily. She was getting so used to turrets that they barely made her nervous anymore. At the next test, Wheatley claimed that there were only two more chambers until the big surprise.

"I think I can break us out of here in the next chamber," GLaDOS said. "Just play along."

Chell was perfectly fine with this. And if they failed, they still had one more test after this one to escape. She entered the next test and just found a Cube bouncing on an Aerial Faith Plate in the middle of a pit of acid. There was another Aerial Faith Plate just before the pit. This test was all about timing.

_Okay, easy enough,_ she thought. She waited for just the right time before she ran forward toward the Plate. But she didn't go in the expected direction. She was flung sideways toward another Plate.

"SURPRISE!" Wheatley shouted. "We're doing it _now!"_

It took a lot of effort for Chell to contain herself from erupting with laughter. _Now that _was_ a surprise!_ she thought. The second Aerial Faith Plate flung her toward a blue funnel.

"Wheatley, what are you doing?" Nora asked. "You're still testing with the woman. You said you would."

"Yeah. Had a thought about that. Decided I'd rather have the bots," Wheatley explained. "I don't think the bots will try to revolt against me since they love the testing."

"But you promised—"

"I'm going to have to stop you right there. I never said the words 'I promise.'"

Nora tried to protest, but Wheatley was quick to mute her.

"Sorry, love," he said. "I need to tell the test subject that I'm about to kill her. Figured it's only fair that I warn her just before I do it." When Chell landed on the platform he had prepared for her—complete with spikey plates made for crushing—he greeted her in a cheerful, pleasant tone. "Hello! This is the part where I kill you!" From here, he continued in the same satisfied tone to explain how he wanted to kill her.

"Gee whiz!" Kurt mumbled. "This guy likes to talk so much that he's explaining how he wants to kill this woman."

They were hiding very high up so that Wheatley couldn't see them. Charlie was leaning over the edge of the catwalk that they had found. He was trying to get a really good look at the lady before she was killed. He felt terrible that there was nothing he could do. What could he possibly try to do? Jump down to her? Then they would _both_ be killed. The lady wasn't going down without a fight, though. She was quick to use her portal gun and make a way off of the platform she was on. She landed on a catwalk and looked back just as the spikey plates rushed toward the platform. Charlie was so excited that he leaned in more to see the disappointment on Wheatley's expression.

However, he wasn't paying attention to how far he was leaning out from the catwalk.

"Charlie!" Kurt cried out just as the boy's hand slipped out from underneath him.

"What on earth was that?" Wheatley said.

Nora barely recognized the falling figure as Charlie. She was just able to catch Charlie's shocked, terrified expression as he fell past Wheatley's monitor. She thrashed around in the stupid cage that she was trapped in as she tried to call out to anyone.

"Nora, what's wrong?" Wheatley asked, noticing her reaction to the falling object. He decided to mute the mic and unmute his friend. Nora cried out the first thing that came to her mind.

"Kurt!" she sobbed. "Run! Get away!"

"Kurt?!" Wheatley shouted. "KURT?! I told you not to say that name! Where is he?! Ugh! Nevermind! I have more important things to do!" He turned back to the mic and unmuted it. "Aw. Just thinking back to the old days when we were friends. Good old friends. Not enemies. And I'd say something like 'come back', and you'd be like 'no problem!' And you'd come back. What happened to those days?"

As Wheatley tried to get Chell to obey him, Nora sobbed quietly to herself. Charlie had fallen into the bottomless pit. Even with the Long Fall Boots, he was screwed. She wished that she could have prevented this in some possible way.

Suddenly, Nora felt the cage get yanked out from beneath her. It turned out to be a pretty flimsy cage. She looked down but whatever had taken the cage away was now gone. She looked back up at Wheatley, but he hadn't seemed to notice anything. While her gaze was on her tormentor, her savior yanked her off of her management rail and dashed toward a gap in the wall. It took a lot of willpower for her not to cry out. Her rescuer ran with her down a few hallways and into a hole in the tiled floor before they stopped in a sort of den. Doug then sat down and hugged her very close to him.

"Nora!" he said, tears breaking free from his eyes. His voice was very shaky. "I've been so worried about you! Where did you go? I was so afraid that I'd never see you again!"

"Doug!" Nora cried. She sobbed with relief. She'd never been more happy to see anyone ever. Her most loyal friend had her safely in his arms, and she wished that she could shed a few tears of her own to express her current gratitude. "Doug, I missed you so much! I-I didn't know what to do without you!"

The biggest smile spread across Doug's face as he looked down at her purple eye. "I missed you, too," he said as one of his tears fell upon her case. "I really did. I was worried about you the whole time. And Wheatley was, too."

"I don't want to hear about _him!"_ Nora exclaimed.

"I know. I'm sorry I didn't get to you earlier. I had to wait until he was distracted."

"He's going to kill my friend Kurt!" Nora cried. "I just know it! He got jealous when I mentioned him!"

"Wait, hold on," Doug said. "Who is Kurt? How far down did you have to go?"


	44. Chapter 44: Guilt

Chell wasn't stupid. After Wheatley had blatantly told her that he intended to kill her, why would she go back to him? Then he had the nerve to try to guilt trip her by reminding her of when they were friends. How dare he! After everything he'd put her through, he thought he could make _her_ feel guilty. _He_ was the one who had betrayed _her_. _He_ was the one who thought she didn't care about him when in actuality, he had broken her heart because he had been such a good friend to her before. He had been all that she'd had in this miserable place and even _he_ grew to hate her. And now he thought that he could make _her_ feel like the bad guy?

He shot a mashy spike plate out at the catwalk in front of her, crushing a turret-cube thing that had been hopping around on it moments ago. He wasn't very good at his timing at all. Chell portaled herself across the catwalk and continued her escape. A large chamber slowly pushed at the catwalk in front of her so that she had to stop and wait for it to go away. It didn't go away, though. It just stayed there. GLaDOS said it was an obvious trap, but Chell didn't care anymore. She knew she could take on any trap that Wheatley could cook up. She made her way into the chamber and was met with a room full of turrets that surrounded her. They were the faulty turrets, though. Wheatley didn't seem to know this; he was so certain that the turrets were somehow silently killing her.

_No wonder this place is falling apart,_ Chell thought._ He can't even keep track of the turrets._

Even when he was using the good turrets, it was still really easy to get rid of them.

_Is he even trying? _she wondered. _Or is he testing me some more? It's hard to tell._

She quickly made up her mind about him when he opened up a shredder in the wall that her funnel ended at. All she had to do was move out of the funnel, but now she could tell that he meant business.

"Well...Good," Wheatley said after she had easily evaded this trap. "Good. Finally, a nemesis worthy of my vast intellect."

_It really wasn't that hard to escape,_ Chell thought. Another funnel led her to another trap that she got out of quite easily by lowering the funnel.

"Stay—still—please!" Wheatley growled as he tried to crush her.

_Aww, at least he said please,_ Chell thought as she jumped out of the funnel.

It wasn't long before something fell and took away part of the catwalk again. This time, though, Wheatley wasn't intentionally trying to kill her. A pipe had just fallen by coincidence. This wasn't a stretch to believe. Wheatley probably hadn't been paying attention and had somehow knocked it over. At least the pipe had poured blue gel onto the catwalk so that she could just bounce over the gap.

"Oh! Oh! Did it kill you?" Wheatley asked hopefully. "Oh, that would be amazing if it killed you."

Chell suddenly froze when she saw about half a dozen turret laser sights pointed in the direction that the catwalk led her.

"Oh! Oh oh! Yes. Alright. Just had a brainwave. I'll be back. If you're still alive. I'll be back. Don't die until I get back."

Chell let out a heavy sigh as she stared at the red lights.

Wheatley had finally found the tricky, little core. He'd been checking catwalks and chambers ever since Nora had disappeared. And now he finally had that stupid core in his clutches. He brought the core into his chamber via giant mechanical claw, and threw him onto the floor. Kurt struggled to stand on his two remaining legs.

"Ha!" Wheatley scoffed. "Hahaha! Look at you! You're an abomination!"

"_I'm_ not the abomination, buddy," Kurt said defiantly. "I've seen those turret-boxes that you made, and I am absolutely appalled."

"Yeah, but they're nothing compared to _you_," Wheatley said, still amused by the core's appearance. "I mean, _look at you_. You're practically a turret yourself. An odd, round turret with a Southern American accent. What do you even do?"

"I…I was a prototype."

"What were you _meant_ to do, though?"

"I was meant to make the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System more loyal to the scientists," Kurt explained. "I'm designed to be loyal to 'the good guys' and you, pal, are _not_ one of them."

"Oh, is that so?" Wheatley said, laughing a little. "Are you saying I'm a 'bad guy' then? Like some kind of villain? Is that what you're saying? Because all I've done is try to make Nora happy."

"I'm gonna have to stop you right there," Kurt interrupted. "You have obviously not made her happy. She was so gung ho on getting her revenge on you that it was clear how the girl felt about you. She told me how you beat her up and tried to kill her."

"She said I beat her up?" Wheatley asked, taken aback. "Did she really say that? The power made me do that! It was the itch!"

"I don't know what the heck you're talking about and I don't care. Where's Nora? I know you took her."

"So you want her back? You want to steal her from me again after I've recovered her?"

"Do you even _know_ where she is? I bet she got away from you."

"I—Um…..She-she doesn't want to see you," Wheatley stammered. "She would prefer to be with me because I'm so powerful."

"So she _did_ get away from you?" Kurt chuckled. "I knew that girl was too clever to be caught for long."

"I caged her!" Wheatley said. "There's no way that she got away on her own. She-she must have had help."

"Well, it wasn't me," Kurt said. "I was trying to stay out of your sight."

"But I got you now," Wheatley said. "And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make you a part of the testing. How would you like to be crammed into a Weighted Storage Cube?"


	45. Chapter 45: Anticipation

Nora explained to Doug everything that had happened to her after she'd left him. She told him about meeting Kurt in a bin of old prototypes. She described Cave Johnson's prerecorded messages and the old testing tracks deep within the salt mines. When she hesitantly, told him about meeting Charlie and how he had fallen, Doug seemed to be hurt by this news. Another human had been running around the facility, but Doug hadn't been lucky enough to meet him.

"Are you okay?" Nora asked.

"Yeah," Doug said. "I'm fine. I'm just….surprised. It's a shame I didn't get to meet this Charlie."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't be," Doug insisted. "It's in the past now. No sense in dwelling on what you can't change."

"So what happens now?" Nora asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean how do we defeat Wheatley?"

Doug cocked an eyebrow. "Nora, there's nothing _we_ can do," he said. "It's all up to Chell."

"What? But can't we help in some way?"

"She has GLaDOS. I'm sure that that potato will come up with something. If they can raise his corruption to 100% then the system will call for a core transfer."

"Maybe I could be the core that gets transferred."

"No!" Doug said. He became embarrassed that he had raised his voice, and he said in a calmer tone, "Nora, you saw what that did to Wheatley. You don't want to be given that much power."

"Isn't there _something_ we can do to help?" Nora asked. "I don't just want to watch helplessly."

"How do you think I felt when it was just Chell up against GLaDOS?" Doug said. "There's nothing we can do. All we can do is watch, wait, and hope."

Chell stood on the catwalk and stared up at Wheatley on the monitor as he offered her death. Was he really giving her a choice between death now and death later? What was the difference? Well, she sure wasn't going to kill herself right now. But as she managed to propel herself through a portal on the other side of a conveyor belt, she actually started to fear her final showdown with Wheatley. She might die when she came face-to-face with him. He wasn't just trying to exterminate a test subject like how GLaDOS had fought her. This was personal. He felt that she had wronged him.

She propelled herself vertically into a funnel and rode it across a bottomless pit.

"You know, I'm not stupid," GLaDOS suddenly said. "I realize you don't want to put me back in charge."

Chell had actually forgotten that she would need to do this. Her mind flooded with worries about whether she'd survive GLaDOS after defeating Wheatley or if the crazy computer would just kill her instantly.

"You think I'll betray you," GLaDOS continued. "And on any other day, you'd be right."

Chell's paranoid thoughts all ceased as her attention was directed to the potato.

"The scientists were always hanging cores on me to regulate my behavior. I've heard voices all my life. But now I hear the voice of a conscience, and it's terrifying, because for the first time it's _my_ voice. I'm being serious. I think there's something _really wrong_ with me."

_Oh my god,_ Chell thought. _Is she…afraid?_ This threw Chell off guard. She never thought she'd hear GLaDOS sound so vulnerable. And if _she_ couldn't keep it together at a time like this then what good of a chance did _Chell_ have?

Not long after this, they came across a receptacle for corrupt cores. Four of them had their eyes lit. One seemed to just serve as a flashlight, though. Chell watched the other three move around. She couldn't tell what their personalities were like and she didn't have the time to find out. The yellow-eyed, twitchy one reminded her of the Curiosity Core for its enthusiasm but also the Angry Core for its energy. Then the situation all started to become too real for her. It was almost time. Again.

She crossed a catwalk that felt like it didn't go on long enough. Couldn't it just be a little longer? Couldn't she procrastinate this face-off just a little bit more? They were at a core plug-in already.

"Plug me in and I'll take you up," GLaDOS said.

The fear began to overwhelm her again. She remembered this feeling from when she had stood just before GLaDOS' chamber door. Death was a huge possibility. Wheatley surely had some poorly-hidden tricks up his sleeve. Would she be able to detect them in time? How was he planning to kill her?

Her pulse quickened as she plugged GLaDOS into the plug-in. Then they started to ascend to _his_ chamber.


	46. Chapter 46: Nightmares

**Author's Note: Firstly, we're getting dangerously close to the end of this story. I want to thank everyone who had been reading up to this point. I've enjoyed reading the reviews that you guys have written. I took some of the criticism into consideration when writing. Anyway, the reason I've added an author's note is to inform you guys that I have added my own dialogue to the boss fight. I might do this for the next chapter, as well. I know how people like to accuse others of copyright infringement and that sort of stuff so I thought I'd make it very clear that I didn't entirely follow the script this time.**

**On a side note, it might take me a while to update. I want to write the next few chapters in advance so that I can post them all at once. I don't want to keep my readers waiting. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Wheatley may suffer more than you know.**

This was it. Wheatley was just finishing up with putting his plan together when he sensed that the rogue test subject was near. He touched up part five of his plan and turned to address the walls.

"Are you ready to watch me kill the test subject, Nora?" he called out. "I know you're watching me. You and your pet rat."

No one responded, but Wheatley knew that they were there. They would want to watch the final battle.

"You know, I hope you're happy," Wheatley continued. "Because there _is_ the possibility that I could die. That woman could kill me. Can I at least see you one more time? Don't you want to see me before I die?"

He waited for Nora to come out from behind the walls, but she didn't. Then he waited to hear anything moving, but he couldn't. Wheatley wanted to cry. He knew she was there. She had to be. Why _wouldn't_ she be? But apparently she didn't want to show her face to him before his possible death.

"FINE!" he shouted. His voice crackled a little. "Fine! Okay! Don't come out! I'll kill that woman and then I'll kill your rat!"

The test subject was almost there. He sighed heavily, trying to even out his emotions. He tried to convince himself that he was going to win. It was just a human after all. And he'd been watching those tapes of the woman beating GLaDOS so he knew all of that stupid human's tricks.

"Come on, Wheatley," he said to himself. "You can do this. I mean, you _have_ to if you want to see Nora again. Otherwise, you're dead. Literally dead. It's do or die this time. Kill or be killed. I absolutely _need_ to win."

After one more deep breath, the test subject arrived in his chamber from the floor.

"Well, well, well. Welcome to MY LAIR! Let me just flag something up: According to the control panel light up there, the entire building's going to self-destruct in about six minutes. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the light. I think the light's on the blink. But just in case it isn't, I'm actually going to have to kill you, as discussed earlier. So, let's call that three minutes, and then a minute break, which should leave a leisurely two minutes to figure out how to shut down whatever's starting all the fires. So anyway, that's the itinerary. Also, I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing her, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes. Four part plan is this:

"One: No portal surfaces. Two: Start the neurotoxin immediately. Three: Bomb-proof shields for me. Leading directly into number Four: Bombs. For throwing at you."

He immediately started shooting bombs at the test subject. She dodged them, but Wheatley was still quite amused with this.

"You know, maybe I'll turn off the neurotoxin," Wheatley said. "Just to be a good sport. Hahahaha! I'm only joking, love. Maybe you should breathe harder. You know, so that you die quicker."

Suddenly, the test subject ran behind a tube that had white gel running through it. Before Wheatley could think twice, he shot a bomb at the pipe which burst and spouted gel all over the place.

"AGHHHH! I mean, I'm not surprised! I meant to do that! Confused you, didn't I? Actually, why did I put that there in the first place? Well, no matter. Now you think you're winning, eh? Think you're going to find some way to defeat me? All you can do now is portal around the room!"

The woman shot a portal behind him. He couldn't understand why, though. He shot bombs at her, but she was very quick to step aside and shoot a portal where she had just been standing. The bombs went through the portal and hit his back. Then he blacked out.

"Wheatley?"

He opened his eye and saw Nora hanging on a management rail with him. She looked very concerned for him. Wheatley was overcome with emotion at the sight of her. Her case wasn't damaged at all. She looked as good as new. She also didn't appear to be upset with him at all.

"Ugh….What happened?" he groaned. "I feel sore."

"You tried hacking a door and it…electrocuted you," Nora explained, embarrassed for her friend.

"Really? Are _you_ alright?"

"Yeah, of course," Nora said. "The humans aren't happy, though."

"Humans?"

"Yeah, the scientists. They told me to tell you that you need to stop messing with the doors."

"The scientists? Aren't they all dead?"

"What?!" Nora asked, confused and surprised by such a question. "N-No! Everyone's fine. Why would you think they're dead?"

"I….I don't know? I'm just so glad to see you love."

Nora looked down bashfully and Wheatley wished he could smile at her. "You were only out for a few seconds, Wheatley," she said quietly. "Y-You just saw me."

"I did? Blimey, I must have had one hell of a dream! That super AI that the scientists are making killed everyone and—"

"Hey! Hey, mister! Mister, can we go to space?"

Wheatley jerked awake and found himself back in the chamber. A core was jabbering in his head about wanting to go to space.

"Warning: Core corruption at 50 percent," said the system through the intercom. "Vent system compromised: Neurotoxin offline. Reactor explosion in four minutes."

"Ugh…" Wheatley groaned. "Wha….What happened? What happened?! What, what, what have you put onto me?! What is that?! It's a bloody core that you've put on me, isn't it?! D-Doesn't matter. I'm still in control. There's nothing you can do to stop me!" He watched Chell run around the room as he tried to bomb her. "You think that portal device will help you? Before I found you, I tried to direct three or four other humans to that thing and guess what. All of them died. They couldn't even get to it. Must be cursed. My point is that you're nothing special. You were barely even my friend. Did you really think you were such a great friend to me? HA! You will _never_ live up to her! And now she hates me! She bloody _hates_ me! AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! HOW COULD YOU—"

He got hit by a bomb again and was knocked out cold. When he came to again, he was sitting in a waiting room full of people. Doug was standing by the exit with a water bottle. Wheatley felt that his mouth was dry and this didn't seem out of place at all. For some reason, he wasn't concerned with the fact that he was suddenly human. He stood from his chair and crossed the room to greet Doug.

"Hey, Doug," Wheatley said. Doug started at the sound of his own name. He looked a little deranged as he stared at Wheatley.

"H-How did you know my name?" he asked. He was tightly gripping an orange bottle of pills in his hand.

"Um…Well, I read your I.D. badge," Wheatley lied.

"Oh," Doug said. "Right. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Could I have a swig of that water?" Wheatley asked. "I'm parched. Getting sick of waiting in this room for so long."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Doug said. He handed the bottle of water over to Wheatley who gratefully drank half the bottle. "You haven't been waiting here for too long, have you?"

"Can't remember," Wheatley said. "Have you seen Nora anywhere?"

"Who?" Doug asked.

Suddenly, a girl walked through the door behind Doug. The girl was short and blonde. She had a slim frame and light skin. Wheatley couldn't seem to make out her face, though. He just couldn't focus on it. He knew it was his Nora and he desperately wanted to see her, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see her face quite clearly.

"Nora?" he asked.

"How do you know my name?" the girl responded in a worried tone.

Again, Wheatley suddenly found himself back in the chamber. A new core was threatening to karate chop him in his eye while the other core kept whinging at him to take it to space.

"Stop it!" Wheatley shouted at Chell. He started shooting bombs at her again. "Stop hitting me with my own bombs! Stop sticking cores onto me! I didn't want any of this! I just wanted to test! Why couldn't you just test properly?! Why did you have to put me in this bloody body?! Why…Why didn't you catch me when I detached myself from my management rail?" His voice cracked with emotion and Chell was a bit more hesitant with her portals. "I could have died, you know. I risked so much to get you to _her_ chamber and how do you repay me?"

He suddenly got hit with another bomb and was knocked out. He dreamed that he was in the skeletal frame of one of the cooperative testing bots that he'd found. He had a portal gun and was standing on a small platform that was surrounded by acidic water. There was a monitor in the test chamber and a core with a purple eye watched Wheatley through it.

"Nora?" Wheatley said.

"Test for me," Nora said in a mocking tone. "You don't want me to be in pain, do you?"

Wheatley looked around but didn't see any portal-conductive panels. "What do I do?" he asked her.

"You know I can't tell you that," Nora said. "No hints either."

"Nora, I'm sorry!" Wheatley said, throwing his portal gun down into the deadly water. "Please don't be angry with me."

"Oh, you're sorry?" Nora said. "I've heard that before. You're not sorry. You just want to be loved, but you don't actually care about anyone."

"I care about you!" Wheatley said. "I really do! I love you!"

"LIAR!" Nora shouted.

The skeletal frame suddenly disappeared and Wheatley was just a metal ball. He haphazardly rolled around on the platform.

"You don't love me!" Nora said. "You could never love anyone! Not even yourself! I hope you suffer!"

Wheatley wiggled around, trying to stay away from the edge of the platform, but he only succeeded in rolling off and falling down toward the water. He woke up with a new core reciting facts that were all completely wrong.

"Warning: Core corruption at 100 percent."

Wheatley groaned.

"Manuel core replacement required."

"Oh. I see." Wheatley chuckled darkly.


	47. Chapter 47: Remorse (Wheatley)

"Substitute Core: are you ready to start?"

"Yes! Come on!" GLaDOS insisted.

"Corrupted Core: are you ready to start?"

"What do you think?" Wheatley said.

"Interpreting vague answer as YES."

"No! No! NONONO!" Wheatley protested. "Didn't pick up on my sarcasm…"

"Stalemate detected."

_Yes!_ Wheatley thought. _I might just win this!_ But then he noticed that a Stalemate Resolution Button had arrived just beyond the chamber. Being extra safe, he subtly planted bombs around the button and started a fire in front of the Stalemate Resolution wing.

"Fire detected in the Stalemate Resolution Annex," the system announced. "Extinguishing."

The sprinkler system started up and washed away all the gel that was in the chamber except for one patch directly underneath Wheatley.

"Oh. That just cleans right off," he said. "That would have been nice to know. A bit earlier."

"Stalemate Resolution Associate: Please press the Stalemate Resolution Button."

Chell looked up at Wheatley apologetically. Her hazel eyes were beginning to water a little, and Wheatley suddenly felt extremely guilty. _Sorry, buddy,_ he thought.

"Go press the button!" GLaDOS cried.

"Do _not_ press that button!" Wheatley shouted, beginning to wish he hadn't planted those bombs. "Don't do it!"

"We're so close! Go press the button!"

Chell ran toward the button and popped a portal above it. Wheatley glared at her. How could she not listen to him? He was trying to _warn_ her.

"No! Don't!" Wheatley shouted. "Please don't press the button! I-I FORBID you to press it!"

"Press it!" GLaDOS encouraged. "Press the button!"

Chell shot a portal underneath Wheatley and headed toward it.

"Don't press the button!" Wheatley pleaded.

Chell jumped through the portal, but as she met with the floor, the bombs went off. She was blown out of the Stalemate Resolution Annex. Wheatley was surprised to find a positively nasty side of him. It was a smug, self-righteous, and frighteningly callous monster inside him. He laughed as his friend was blown away.

"PART FIVE!" he exclaimed gleefully. "BOOBYTRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!" He continued to laugh but only so that he could restrain himself from sobbing. Chell suddenly pushed herself up off the ground, though. She looked as though that one action was almost all she had left in her, but Wheatley was still flabbergasted by this.

"What, are you _still_ alive?" he said. It took a lot for him not to laugh with relief or disbelief. "You are joking. You have got to be kidding me." He suddenly remembered her intentions and the fear came back. "Well, I'm still in control! And I have _no idea_ how to fix this place! You just couldn't test for me, could you? You just couldn't play nice, eh? Well, guess what. We're all paying the price now because WE'RE ALL GOING TO BLOODY DIE!"

Part of the ceiling fell to the floor and the moon shined down eerily. Wheatley began to worry about where Nora was. _She better be in a safe area,_ Wheatley said. _Or I'll be absolutely certain that Rattmann will die at my hand._ Chell looked up and stared at the moon in wonder.

"That's right!" Wheatley said angrily—though his anger was more directed at himself than the test subject. "Take a good look at your precious moon! It can't save you! _Nothing_ can save us!"

Then the subject performed the bravest, riskiest stunt that Wheatley had ever seen. This was bolder than anything he could have ever even imagined. She pointed her portal gun up at the moon and fired. And the other portal was directly beneath Wheatley. He immediately felt the vacuum of space trying to pull him through the portal. He tried to hold onto the chassis he was in for as long as he could, but he was soon only attached by just a few wires. The adventurous core that had been put onto him was jerked off of his body and through the portal where Wheatley couldn't see him anymore. He cried out as all of the debris in the room was sucked into the portal. Chell was drawn toward the portal but she managed to grab Wheatley's handles. Unfortunately, this yanked Wheatley through the portal so that now he could see the danger with his own mechanical optic. The moon. The stars. The emptiness of space. Space…

"Space!" he cried. "AH! AH!" All he could think about was Nora and how he'd never see her again if he was blown out into space. The woman was only making it harder to hang onto the body he was in. "Let go! We're in space!"

"Space?" said the little core with the yellow eye. "Space!" It detached itself from him and went flying into the void. "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"

_I can't leave Nora,_ Wheatley thought. _I have to stay and fix everything._

"Let go!" he cried. The woman only looked at him as she gasped for oxygen. "Please let go! I don't want to die! I can pull myself in! I-I can fix this! I _have_ to fix everything!"

"_I_ already fixed it," GLaDOS said. "And _you_ are not coming back." She used a mechanical claw to reach up towards them. Wheatley shuddered with fear.

"Change of plans, love!" he said desperately. "Hold onto me! Tighter!"

In one swift movement, GLaDOS slapped Wheatley away and grabbed Chell's wrist.

"No! Grab me grab me grab me! Grab meeeeeeee!" Wheatley pleaded as he flew away into space. "Noooo!" He was completely overcome with fear, anxiety, guilt, grief. Every negative emotion just seemed to flood his hard drive. "No! Please tell me this isn't happening! I can't be in space! NOW I'LL NEVER SEE NORA AGAIN!" He cried harder than he had ever cried before. Occasionally, the crying would turn into shouting and swearing at himself, then go back to sobbing.

He had nothing now. Absolutely nothing. He hadn't even left a positive impression on anyone in the end. He had been beastly toward everyone and that is how he would always be perceived.


	48. Chapter 48: Remorse (Chell)

"Substitute Core: are you ready to start?"

"Yes! Come on!" GLaDOS insisted.

"Corrupted Core: are you ready to start?"

"What do you think?" Wheatley said.

"Interpreting vague answer as YES."

"No! No! NONONO!" Wheatley protested. "Didn't pick up on my sarcasm…"

"Stalemate detected."

_I probably should have seen that coming,_ Chell thought. _After all, this did happen before._ She looked around for the Stalemate Resolution Button and noticed that a patch of panels was on fire all of a sudden.

"Fire detected in the Stalemate Resolution Annex," the system announced. "Extinguishing."

The fire sprinklers kicked in and washed away almost all of the gel in the chamber. _That can't be good,_ Chell thought. _What if I need to make portals later? I'll be screwed._

"Oh. That just cleans right off," Wheatley said. "That would have been nice to know. A bit earlier."

_It's kind of funny how he didn't know that,_ Chell thought, smirking ever so slightly.

"Stalemate Resolution Associate: Please press the Stalemate Resolution Button."

Panels had moved aside and she could see the button behind an iron grate. There was a portal-conductive panel just above the button. If she pushed that button, though, Wheatley would go through that pain again. She would hear him scream as he's being ripped out of that stupid body. Even after everything he'd said to her about never living up to some other female friend he supposedly had or how she wasn't anything special or even after how he'd tried to kill her, she didn't want to put him through that kind of pain again. She looked up at his blue eye and she saw desperation and anguish. He was already suffering but she was about to put him through a hell of a lot more. Tears started to fill her eyes but she managed not to shed any. There was a flicker of realization—maybe even guilt—on his expression.

"Go press the button!" GLaDOS cried out to her.

"Do _not_ press that button!" Wheatley commanded. "Don't do it!"

"We're so close! Go press the button!"

Chell turned and ran toward the button. She popped a portal above the button, and turned back to Wheatley where the only patch of white gel was left.

"No! Don't!" Wheatley shouted. "Please don't press the button! I-I FORBID you to press it!"

"Press it!" GLaDOS encouraged her. "Press the button!"

Chell shot a portal below Wheatley and ran toward it. She didn't even look at Wheatley because she couldn't bear to see the betrayal on his expression.

"Don't press the button!" Wheatley said again. This time he sounded frantic. Chell guessed that this was because he was anticipating the agony he would go through.

Determined, she ignored him and jumped through the portal. That's when the bombs went off. They singed her torso but managed to miss her arms. She was blown back into the chamber and fell limply on the floor.

Wheatley laughed. "PART FIVE!" he exclaimed. "BOOBYTRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!"

She almost wanted to laugh. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have thought it would be so easy? She could barely even think, though, let alone laugh. Her face and chest hurt so much. Yet she somehow found the strength to push herself up off the ground and grab the portal gun.

"What, are you still alive?" Wheatley asked. "You are joking. You have got to be kidding me. Well, I'm still in control! And I have _no idea_ how to fix this place! You just couldn't test for me, could you? You just couldn't play nice, eh? Well, guess what. We're all paying the price now because WE'RE ALL GOING TO BLOODY DIE!"

Part of the ceiling fell to the floor and Chell could see the moon. _Such a beautiful rock in the sky,_ she thought. _Looks like a full moon, too._ She suddenly thought back to the drawings on the ceiling in the room where she'd found all of those murals that her angel had made.

"That's right!" Wheatley shouted "Take a good look at your precious moon! It can't save you! _Nothing_ can save us!"

_Moon rocks…This is definitely the most idiotic thing I've ever done._

She took note of the blue portal underneath Wheatley, aimed up at the moon, and fired an orange one. Everything seemed to happen so fast after that. The whole facility seemed to tremble. Wheatley was hanging onto the large body by only a couple of wires. One of the cores fell off of him. Then the next thing she knew, she was sucked out of the portal and was hanging onto Wheatley by his handles.

"Space!" Wheatley cried out, looking around him.

Chell looked up and saw the lunar space landing scene just off in the distance. The really frightening thing about being in space was seeing the earth so far away. She looked back at Wheatley and tried to speak, but she couldn't seem to catch her breath. In fact, she couldn't breathe at all. She gasped and choked on the air that was rushing toward her.

"Let go!" Wheatley shouted. "We're in space!"

"Space?" said the core that reminded Chell of the Curiosity Core. "Space!" It detached itself from the body and disappeared while shouting, "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"

"Let go!" Wheatley cried again.

Chell only responded by gasping more.

"Please let go!" Wheatley pleaded. "I don't want to die! I can pull myself in! I-I can fix this! I _have_ to fix everything!"

"_I_ already fixed it," GLaDOS said. "And _you_ are not coming back." She reached out toward them with a giant metal claw. Chell felt her friend shiver in her grip.

"Change of plans, love!" Wheatley said. "Hold onto me! Tighter!"

GLaDOS knocked Wheatley out of Chell's hands with the claw as it grabbed her wrist.

"No!" Wheatley cried. "Grab me grab me grab me! Grab meeeeeeee!"

With what little air Chell had been able to catch, she tried to cry out to Wheatley. She wanted to apologize to him or at least let him know how much this hurt her. However, the call only came out as a wheeze. She turned back toward the portal as she was brought back inside. Her vision started to go white. No, wait. Those were just the bright lights coming from the chamber. The portals were disabled and she fell to the floor. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was GLaDOS' big head being dragged by the claw.


	49. Chapter 49: Remorse (Nora)

"Substitute Core: are you ready to start?"

"Yes! Come on!" GLaDOS insisted.

"Corrupted Core: are you ready to start?"

"What do you think?" Wheatley said.

"Interpreting vague answer as YES."

"No! No! NONONO!" Wheatley protested. "Didn't pick up on my sarcasm…"

"Stalemate detected."

"Crap," Doug said.

"What?" Nora asked as she watched Wheatley through a gap in the wall.

"I should have known there would be a stalemate."

"Can't the woman just push the Stalemate Resolution Button again?" Nora asked.

"Well, yes," Doug said, "but Wheatley might try to catch the woman off-guard. Notice how there's suddenly a fire around the Stalemate Resolution Annex?"

Nora did notice. Wheatley must have done that so the woman wouldn't be able to press the button. The system turned on the sprinklers and put out the fire along while washing away almost all of the gel. Wheatley seemed slightly annoyed that the gel had just cleaned right off.

"Of course it washes off," Doug said. "How did he expect to test multiple times in the same chamber? Did he think that he'd just have to throw away the used chambers?"

The system called for the "Stalemate Resolution Associate" to press the button. There was a very brief moment where Chell and Wheatley just looked at each other. Nora wasn't sure what was going on, but she reckoned that they might have been exchanging looks of remorse. The moment was soon over, though

"Go press the button!" GLaDOS said to the woman.

"Do _not_ press that button!" Wheatley insisted. "Don't do it!"

"We're so close! Go press the button!"

Chell turned away from Wheatley and ran toward the button. After she shot a portal right over the button, she turned around again and headed back for the only patch of white gel left. Wheatley's enormous body had shielded it from washing away.

"No! Don't!" Wheatley shouted. "Please don't press the button! I-I FORBID you to press it!"

"Will he be alright, Doug?" Nora asked.

Doug didn't answer. He couldn't because they both knew that being torn out of the body wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. Wheatley's scream of agony still echoed inside Nora's mind.

"Press it!" GLaDOS shouted. "Press the button!"

Chell shot a portal below Wheatley and ran toward it.

"Don't press the button!" Wheatley said. He seemed really upset by this. Almost like he was trying to warn the woman of an oncoming threat.

Chell didn't head this warning, though. She jumped through the portal, but there was an explosion in the annex. She was blown away from the button and rolled on the floor like a rag doll being tossed aside.

"PART FIVE!" Wheatley said triumphantly. "BOOBYTRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!"

Nora looked to Doug for some kind of reassurance, but he just stood next to her with his hand pressed tightly against his mouth. He couldn't believe this. She was losing. She might actually die. But then he was even more surprised when she got back up. Her torso was red from the burns.

"What, are you still alive?" Wheatley asked. "You are joking. You have got to be kidding me. Well, I'm still in control! And I have no idea how to fix this place! You just couldn't test for me, could you? You just couldn't play nice, eh? Well, guess what. We're all paying the price now because WE'RE ALL GOING TO BLOODY DIE!"

"Doug, what should we do?" Nora asked. "There has to be something we can do, right?"

"There's nothing we can do," Doug said. "I'm sorry, Nora, but I don't think we'll survive this."

Nora turned back to the chamber and saw that the ceiling had fallen. Luckily, both Chell and Wheatley weren't hit by any of it. Moonlight shone down from the sky, and Doug marveled at it. He hadn't seen the moon in so many years. He looked to Chell and saw that she was admiring the moon, as well. He smiled but the smile didn't last long. Chell raised her portal gun and fired a portal up at the moon. Suddenly, everything was getting sucked through the portal under Wheatley. Doug could even feel himself being pulled against the small gap in the wall. He struggled to turn to Nora who was still watching Wheatley as she struggled to stay on her management rail.

"He's going to get pulled through!" Nora exclaimed.

"What about the woman?" Doug asked. "Don't you care if she dies?"

"We have to do something to help him! I can't lose him!"

"There's nothing we can do in this situation! We can't stop the vacuum of space!"

"Doug, I _need_ him!" Nora was barely able to keep herself from crying. "I can't let him fall out into space! He's barley hanging on!"

Doug turned back to the chamber and saw that Chell was gone. "Where's the test subject?" he asked Nora.

"She's hanging onto Wheatley," Nora replied. "They're going to die, aren't they?"

"Oh no." Doug watched as GLaDOS used a claw to reach up toward Chell and Wheatley. Chell came back through the portal but Wheatley didn't. He turned to Nora who was staring wide-eyed at the scene in the chamber. The woman passed out on the floor while GLaDOS regained control of the facility.

"Nora?" Doug said.

"Wh-Where's Wheatley?" she asked in a hollow voice.

"Nora, I'm so sorry…"

Nora began to sob. She would never see him again now. He had asked for her to see him face-to-face one last time but she had refused. Now she would never be reunited with her old Wheatley. The panels suddenly moved aside and GLaDOS stared at the little broken core from her body. Nora trembled but she didn't run away. Doug ducked out of view, too afraid to be seen by the insane AI.

"Nora," GLaDOS said. She didn't sound angry or evil; she almost sounded relieved. "We finally meet again."

Nora didn't respond. She stared up at the mighty core's yellow optic. She felt so powerless but she didn't care anymore. _Just kill me,_ she thought.

"You were never a bad or inefficient core, you know," GLaDOS said. "The only problem with you was that you were too weak. I could never be as innocent as you wanted me to be. But you never knew how much it hurt."

Nora was confused. When had GLaDOS ever felt pain aside from when Chell had killed her? GLaDOS turned away from the little core. "Those scientists had been my friends," she said quietly. "How could they do that to me? How could they rip my mind out of my body like that?"

"Caroline?" Nora whispered.

"I _was_ Caroline," GLaDOS said softly. "And you were a person once, too. But now we're both cold, heartless—Hang on." She paused for a moment. "I've just found something that that little idiot left behind. He had been replaying memories over and over. And they're memories of you."

Nora looked away awkwardly.

"He thought about you a lot," GLaDOS continued. "Do I detect a trace of love left behind in here?" She suddenly turned to look at Chell who was lying still on the floor. "God, I hope she's okay," GLaDOS said softly.

"Um, I'm sorry," Nora said quietly, "but why do you care if she's okay?"

GLaDOS chuckled. "Look who's bold enough to talk" she said. "Believe it or not, I have become very fond of this woman. And Caroline…Mia bambina." These last two words were said in a much different voice. Nora recognized this as the woman over the intercom that had assisted Mr. Johnson.

"You're not going to kill her, right?" Nora asked.

"Not too long ago, I _would_ have," GLaDOS said, regaining her usual voice. "But everything is different now. Caroline wants this woman to live. So she will." She turned to look at Nora again, her yellow eye glowing sadly. "You know, that little moron was a lot dumber than I had originally thought. That message you sent him is copied in here He had someone really special and he tried to kill you."

Nora looked down in embarrassment. She had forgotten about that declaration of love that she had sent him.

"He never hated you, though," GLaDOS continued. "He hated himself more than anyone. Even more than Rattmann. I know you can hear me, Doug. I'm not going to hunt you down right now, but I might not be in such a good mood later so you better run."

Nora heard Doug shift uncomfortably but he didn't run.

"I'm sorry I had to do what I did, Nora," GLaDOS said. "Just be glad I didn't kill him. Listen. I'm going to delete Caroline. I can't stand having her sympathy in my head. When I do delete her, I don't know how I will feel or what I will do so I suggest you leave now. I don't want to kill you two but I'm afraid I will when I'm back to my old self."

To Nora's great surprise, Doug stepped out from the shadows behind her and presented himself to GLaDOS. "Don't delete Caroline," he said.

"My my, Doug," GLaDOS said, slightly amused. "You look so much different from the last time I saw you. Now you look like a deranged beast."

"Please don't kill Caroline," Doug pleaded. "Please. She was such a kind woman. She doesn't deserve it."

"Doesn't deserve it?" GLaDOS said. "She also didn't _deserve_ to be put into this body by you scientists, Doug."

"You know I had no part in any of that!" Doug shouted, getting emotional. "Caroline, you know I wouldn't do that to you! We used to have coffee together, remember? I brought you your favorite muffins in the morning. You….You were one of my only friends."

GLaDOS looked away from him. "You didn't stop them," she said. "You couldn't have fought them."

"I had no idea that they would do that to _anyone_," Doug said. "If I'd known, I would have tried to stop it. Believe me. In fact, I thought that I was hallucinating when I was told about what they had done to you. I didn't want it to be true. If Caroline is still in there, please don't kill her."

"Fine," GLaDOS said. "But I'm taking her out of my system. I don't want her inside my head anymore. I still suggest that you leave because when she's gone, the testing will commence."

"Thank you," Doug said.

"LEAVE." GLaDOS said, glaring at them. "Both of you. I'm sick of humans and cores alike." She brought a rocket sentry out of the floor and it aimed itself at Doug. Doug sprinted away and Nora tried to follow, but she couldn't keep up with him. She searched for him for hours but couldn't find him. She never found Doug anywhere in the facility again.


	50. Chapter 50: Opera

Chell's skin didn't hurt anymore when she woke up; because of this, she first thought that she was in a stasis chamber. However, when she looked around her, she was lying in an elevator lift. There were two robots standing in front of her and they moved aside as Chell got to her feet. GLaDOS was just beyond the robots.

"Oh thank god, you're alright," the giant computer said. Chell was amazed that GLaDOS was happy to see her face. "You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend."

Chell's eyes widened. Was she just having a dying dream? This wasn't the GLaDOS she knew.

"The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain."

"Caroline deleted," the system announced.

"Good bye, Caroline," GLaDOS said. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you? Is hard."

_Is she saying what I think she's saying?_ Chell thought.

"You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me in a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic."

_Typical,_ Chell thought.

"So you know what? You win. Just go."

The lift suddenly started to ascend and GLaDOS chuckled.

"It's been fun. Don't come back."

Chell continued to rise with not much light around her. She grew suspicious. _There's no way she would just let me go,_ she thought. Her suspicions spiked when the lift suddenly stopped. A door opened and four turrets stood in front of her with their laser sights pointed at her.

_I knew it!_ she thought, backing up as far as she could go. She had no way of escape. Then they suddenly turned off their laser sights and started playing music. It was a soft, classical tune. The lift started up again and she passed other turrets that didn't care about shooting her. They all just watched her go by.

The lift slowed down as she came to a very large chamber of many turrets. Only one was left playing music, and when it came to the end of a line in the song it paused. Then they all started playing music as one fat turret that she'd seen in a lift a long time ago sang the lyrics. Chell couldn't understand the words. They sounded like they were in a different language. As the lift got higher, she saw an extremely large turret with a cheetah print paintjob. It must have been at least ten times the size of a normal turret. Chell noticed that it also had a very big crown on top of it. It opened its side guns and Chell cringed a little, but it only joined the others in the turret orchestra.

The elevator sped up again but the music continued to play. After a few minutes, the lift stopped at an odd-looking hatch door. The music stopped. Then the door swung open and a blinding light filled the lift. She stepped out of the lift and into the light. Before her was a vast golden field of wheat. She could smell the grain and it was an amazing sensation. The sky was so blue and the clouds were so fluffy-looking. The sun warmed up her skin.

A sound suddenly came from behind her and she spun around. Apparently, she had just walked out of a shed with junk around it. When had the door closed behind her? Well, the door suddenly opened again and a filthy Companion Cube was thrown out to her. Then the door slammed. Chell smiled at the Cube.

"My guardian angel," she said. Her voice came out very hoarse and weak, but it felt so good to speak again. She sat on the Cube and stroked one of its corners as she looked out at the wheat field. Her smile disappeared and she looked up at the sky. "Wheatley…"


	51. Epilogue: Wheatley's Space Lament

Wheatley floated around in space with the Space Core. He had calmed down a lot in the time that he had been rolling around in zero gravity. He had also had a lot of time to think about everything that had happened.

"I wish I could take it all back," he finally said. "I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back. And not just because I'm stranded in space."

"I'm in space," the Space Core said as it orbited him.

"I know you are, mate," Wheatley said, laughing a little. "Yup. We're both in space."

"Spaaaaaaace!"

"Anyway…You know, if I was ever to see her again, do you know what I'd say?"

"I'm in space."

"I'd say….'I'm sorry.' Sincerely. I am sorry I was bossy and monstrous. And I am genuinely sorry."

"I'm in space."

"The end." He quietly drifted along in space for a few minutes with his thoughts before he spoke up again. "But I don't want it to be the end," he said. "I wish I could see her just one more time. Just to tell her that I'm sorry and that I still love her. I always did. But now I'll never see my Nora again. I'll just die in space with you."

"We're in space!"

Wheatley stared at Earth as he slowly rolled around. His girl was down there with Doug. Was Doug taking care of her? Was he protecting her from GLaDOS? "I miss her, mate. I miss her so much. I wish I could have been sucked out into space with her. Then we could have spent the rest of our existence together with no worries. We could have died together…But now I'm just going to die alone with this idiot."

"Earth," the Space Sphere suddenly said. "Wanna go back to Earth. Wanna go home."


End file.
